Donald Tusk warns of a "pre-war era" and speaks of the most critical moment since World War Two.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has delivered a blunt warning that Europe has entered a “pre-war era” and if Ukraine is defeated by Russia, nobody in Europe will be able to feel safe.

“I don’t want to scare anyone, but war is no longer a concept from the past,” he told European media. “It’s real and it started over two years ago.”

His remarks came as a fresh barrage of Russian missiles targeted Ukraine.

Russia has intensified its bombardment of Ukraine in recent weeks.

Overnight into Friday Ukraine’s air force said it had shot down 58 drones and 26 missiles and Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said energy infrastructure had been damaged in six regions, in the west, centre and east of the country.

  • Olap@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1712·
    8 months ago

    Going to call nonsense on the headline: NATO is intact, and Putin wouldn’t dare invade a nato country.

    Trump it’s the caveat, but even in that event France and the UK have a nuclear umbrella, and there is a shit load of troops. A war with NATO is unwinnable for Russia for certain.

    Ukraine danced with the neutrality devil and lost, just as Belgium on WW1 did, and the NL of WW2. Any country now adjacent to Russia and not in NATO has a choice: risk the neutrality game or side with NATO. I know which I’d be picking.

    • Maalus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      282·
      8 months ago

      Putin wouldn’t dare invade Ukraine, it’s just training, right? They didn’t “dance with neutrality”. They were a former soviet state far east, that gave up its nukes for security guarantees that the US now wipes their ass with. They openly sided with democracy by throwing out a russian puppet - who wasn’t really “neutral”. You barely know the history of the country, yet you try to look like the expert.

      • Pilferjinx@lemmy.worldEnglish
        71·
        8 months ago

        I agree. Nobody thought Putin would be stupid enough to invade Ukraine, myself included, but here we are. Putin is not working on the same logic as the rest of the world. Plus, no one is ever going to use nukes on any country that has them in parity, offensively or defensively.

    • FarceOfWill@infosec.pubEnglish
      31·
      8 months ago

      You’re right about a Russia/NATO war being unwinnable for Russia. Even the current military of Europe alone would be enough to see off Russia.

      So, what is he warning us about? I see two (not exclusive) things he could be doing.

      Trump winning in America would cause such stress on NATO it would fragment, and even if they kick America out it still looks weak so they want all of Europe to beat the 2% requirement to try and keep trump’s USA in NATO.

      Second, he’s warning of war with china. This is where my money is.

    • Digitalprimate@lemmy.worldEnglish
      31·
      8 months ago

      I’m not sure your grasp of the situation in BE in WWI or NL in WWII is …accurate. It’s certainly no longer relevant.

      • Olap@lemmy.worldEnglish
        21·
        8 months ago

        If we are on the brink of ww3, which I doubt, then Ukraine is the first casualty it appears. The parallels are easy to draw, but hard to back up certainly as the specifics do differ. But those not aligned will increasingly find themselves subject to pulls in either sphere of influence, which is my main point. Ultimately you could argue this all is a failure of foreign policy for a few governments with Russia being emboldened to invade. Which you could also say of both previous world wars too. To dismiss the comparison is to dismiss history, and those who fail to learn from history…