Russia allegedly planned ‘acts of terror’ in the air, Warsaw says

(Warsaw) Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Wednesday that Russia planned “acts of terror” in air transport around the world, accusing Moscow of organizing sabotage and hijacking on Polish soil and beyond .

Tusk made the statement in the presence of the President of neighboring Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, who came to Poland for a series of talks, days before the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump.

Poland, a member of the EU and NATO, has been one of Ukraine’s main allies since Russia launched a war against Kyiv in February 2022.

“Without going into detail, I can confirm the validity of the fears that Russia has planned acts of terror in the air, not only against Poland, but also against airlines around the world,” Mr. Tusk during a joint press briefing with his Ukrainian guest.

According to him, “the acts of sabotage, the different versions of the war that Russia has declared on the entire civilized world, and not only on Ukraine, require joint action.”

Mr Tusk, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU, promised to do everything to “overcome the impasse” in Ukraine’s European accession process.

“The Polish presidency will overcome the impasse that has emerged in recent months. And we will work with Ukraine and our European partners, without preconditions, to accelerate the accession process as much as possible,” he said.

For his part, Mr. Zelensky stressed that “the sooner Ukraine is in the EU, the sooner Ukraine becomes a member of NATO, the more we act together, the sooner the whole of Europe will obtain the geopolitical certainty that it needs.”

“Russia will not go where there is our integration, our common strength,” he added.

“Problem to solve”

Mr. Zelensky increased his meetings with supporters of Ukraine before Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

The Republican has promised to quickly end the fighting upon his return to office next week, raising fears in Ukraine that it will be forced to make major territorial concessions in exchange for peace.

MM. Tusk and Zelensky also spoke about resolving a decades-old dispute over the World War II massacres of Poles in Volyn, a city today in western Ukraine.

Mr Tusk, whose ruling pro-EU alliance faces May’s presidential election, is under pressure from nationalists to have the victims of the massacres exhumed.

“There is a rather obvious problem to be resolved, namely the need of Polish families to bury with dignity their loved ones who were victims of the Volyn massacre and, in general, this principle should decide and apply to all parties” , said Mr. Tusk.

“The fact that we understand each other on this issue, that we are starting to talk about it normally and that we have taken certain steps, yes, this deserves to be called a breakthrough,” he said.

Neither side specified what concrete actions had been taken.