In the interview, the Prime Minister highlighted the following:

At the NATO Summit in Madrid, we made a great step forward for the long term, but in the short term, there are some issues we need to address more urgently, in particular with regard to the speed of providing support to Ukraine.

As regards the troop numbers in the territory of the new alliance members, we are still making every effort to respect the provisions of the NATO-Russia Founding Act. The problem is not so much ensuring the presence of troops in the field, as the ability to rapidly increase their numbers when needed, where we are still lagging behind.

I think none of the European countries is immune to the information war waged by Russia. A large part of the population of the Western Balkans, in particular the Slavic part, is sympathetic to the Russian side, but not their governments. What we should do is address the governments of these countries directly, listen to them and then plan appropriate activities, together with those who support the European idea. This is a fragile balance that we need to find. We have to take these circumstances into account, because shutting our eyes to these problems will not solve them.

One of the conclusions of the alliance’s summit was that we do not want to alienate China. This means that we do not want a confrontation – we want to observe, monitor and engage in the new circumstances. I think that this is the right approach.

Any kind of expansionism is worrying, especially with regard to China, which is a growing superpower. But the point is that we need to engage, as this is the only way to prevent escalation. Perhaps if such an engagement had existed in relations with Russia ten years ago, the events in Ukraine would have happened differently. This is a lesson we must all learn from.