Vladimir Putin faces major crisis as Poland on brink of defence agreement with Ukraine

 

Warsaw has announced that a security pact between Poland and Ukraine is "currently being accelerated," marking a significant setback for Vladimir Putin. Poland is hastening its defense agreement with Ukraine, which is almost ready, delivering another blow to Russia's forces.

Since Putin's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Warsaw has aligned with European allies in providing military aid to Kyiv. Pawel Kowal, a Polish lawmaker and chairman of Poland’s Council for Cooperation with Ukraine, has now revealed that the bilateral security deal is progressing rapidly.

"The work on a security agreement between our countries is currently being accelerated," Kowal told the Polish news agency PAP, according to European Pravda.

 "It will be ready soon, but from our point of view, this agreement will only be a supplement, a kind of cherry on top. After all, the whole process of military support for Ukraine has been ongoing for more than two years, and Poland was undoubtedly the first in this process."

Kowal highlighted that the primary challenge is to protect Ukrainian cities, as Russia intensifies its attacks on front-line cities using glide bombs and an expanding network of airstrips in 2024, according to AP reports. He emphasized that providing protection will give hope to soldiers on the front lines and ensure Ukraine's capability to defend itself.

"Real defense also includes the ability to attack strategic military targets on Russian territory," Kowal told the news agency.

This announcement comes as Russia resumed its aerial assaults on Ukraine’s power grid, while Kyiv’s forces targeted Russian oil facilities with cross-border drone strikes, aiming to weaken each other’s war capabilities.

The conflict, now in its third year, has seen both sides targeting distant infrastructure with no major changes along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, where recent Russian advances in eastern and northeastern Ukraine have been minimal.

In its seventh major attack on Ukrainian power plants in three months, Russia fired nine missiles and 27 Shahed drones at energy facilities and critical infrastructure in central and eastern Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian air force.

Air defenses intercepted all the drones and five cruise missiles, but the attack still caused extensive damage to power structures in the Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv, and Vinnytsia regions, injuring seven workers, as reported by the national power company Ukrenergo.

Meanwhile, Putin signed at least a dozen deals with his Vietnamese counterpart on Thursday, offering to supply fossil fuels, including natural gas, to Vietnam for the long term. This state visit aims to strengthen Moscow's ties in Asia to counteract its growing international isolation due to its military actions in Ukraine.

Nigel Gould-Davies, a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London and a former British ambassador to Belarus, noted that the agreements with Vietnam were not as substantial as the pact Putin signed with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un the previous day, which pledged mutual aid in the event of an invasion.