Russian news portal Baltnews, which targets Russian speakers in the Baltic States, has written extensively against U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to move U.S. troops to Poland, and has now cited scholars who warn that such a move could lead to “apocalypse” that could draw all of Europe into war.
One of the articles quoted German political scientist Alexander Rahr as saying that Germany is totally opposed to the move, as the Germans see it as provocation against Russia which harms Germany’s security.
The portal quotes military academic and diplomat Vladymir Vinokurov as saying that Trump’s decision was the result of “persistent lobbying and intrigue from President Andrzej Duda, who dreams of U.S. troops on Polish soil in his sleep.”
Vinokurov argues that this will not help Polish security but actually instead achieve the opposite outcome. He warns that “this will reduce Polish chances of surviving the first wave of an attack, but I don’t want to speculate on such a scenario in which Poland draws the whole of Europe into an apocalypse”.
This kind of rhetoric is not new and is consistent with the Russian narrative that presents Poland as the “vanguard of Russophobia” responsible for problematic relations between Moscow and Europe.
If a conflict breaks out between Russia and the West, it will be Poland which will be blamed according to the Kremlin’s academic, who also said the country will be forced to pay the highest price.
The interview in which Vinokurov made thinly veiled threats against Poland was however dedicated mainly to the Baltic States and the ethnic Russians living there.
It raised the issue of the statement of the Latvian defense minister who said that Latvia would gladly pay for a larger U.S. contingent on its territory. Vinokurov states that, “Some states think that having foreign, especially U.S. troops on their soil, increases their security.”
“The opposite is actually the case, the more they try to draw the Americans in, the less security they will have.”
He called the attempts of the Baltic States to increase the U.S. presence in the region the “Polish syndrome”.
Recently, Russian Colonel Vladimir Anochin warned that “the U.S. anti-missile defense in Poland will turn out to be useless”, after Russia installed advanced Smerch RS30 rocket launcher systems in the Kaliningrad oblast, which is a slice of Russian territory that lies between Poland and the Baltic States.
