https://video.echelon.pl/videos/watch/be0b1375-e711-43cc-85fe-caa07fd2d852 Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski attributes Russia's aggressive policies not just to the actions of Putin, but fundamentally to the country's state ideology. He suggests that Russia had a brief period where Sakharov and other dissidents were viewed as heroes, representing a more liberal or democratic path. However, according to Sikorski, the state's official narrative has since reverted to celebrating the Tsars and the most expansionist and cruel figures from its history, specifically mentioning Stalin. The core of his argument is: "A country that has such a state ideology is by definition a threat to its neighbors." In this view, the chosen historical figures and national myths underpinning the current ideology are inherently aggressive, meaning that Russia's threat level is structural and ideological, independent of any specific leader. What makes Russia unfriendly is simply, it's not just the person of Vladimir Putin, it is Russia's state ideology. Russia had its episode when the heroes were Sakharov, right, the dissidents, and now it's the Tsars again, and the most expansionist and cruel ones—Stalin and so on. A country that has such a state ideology is by definition a threat to its neighbors. Every American administration learns about Russia and Europe anew. I think every American administration believes that if we talk to these Russians in a friendlier way, they will reciprocate. And they always pay back in the same coin. We know this in our region. We, as Europe, the European part of NATO, have doubled our defense spending since the first Trump administration. If the allies do most of what they themselves committed to, by the end of the decade we will have military capabilities that will be sufficient to deter putin. Wed, 22 Apr 2026 14:51:41 GMT https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html PeerTube - https://video.echelon.pl https://video.echelon.pl/client/assets/images/icons/icon-512x512.png https://video.echelon.pl/videos/watch/be0b1375-e711-43cc-85fe-caa07fd2d852 All rights reserved, unless otherwise specified in the terms specified at https://video.echelon.pl/about and potential licenses granted by each content's rightholder.