“I see the Russian troops regrouping, reorganizing,” Mateusz Morawiecki said in an interview with the US broadcaster on Thursday.
He added: "I think that they will try to surround the Ukrainian forces quite soon—in the Donbas region in particular. And then having captured one-third of the land in Ukraine, they will want to negotiate from this … very strong position."
'Crushing set of sanctions'
Morawiecki told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive interview that Ukraine’s allies needed to continue imposing a “crushing set of sanctions.”
He argued that Moscow was “fearful of long-term sanctions."
He said: “We are advocating for confiscating their assets, and doing everything possible to stop buying Russian oil and gas."
He warned that, even though Western allies have already imposed harsh sanctions, the price of the Russian ruble remained largely stable and that “for the time being, Putin and his people were able to change the fiscal policy, monetary policy, financial policy in such a way that they are immune to the sanctions to some extent ... at least for the next several months.”
Morawiecki said: “For the next weeks and the next couple of months, Russia is prepared for this war. I’m not so sure if the West, if the United States, the European Union and NATO are as prepared. … Our public opinion will get tired of this war."
'A turning point in our history'
He told CNN: "I'm making this appeal to all the good people in the United States: Do not 'get tired' with this [war] because it is a turning point in our history and we cannot allow Putin to conquer another country. We cannot allow Russia to commit all those war crimes in Ukraine."
Morawiecki warned during the interview that while the “Ukrainians are fighting with lion hearts,” the West needs to urgently increase its supplies of weapons into the country.
He appealed to the United States to "act quickly."
"Please act quickly as they are fighting for our values, our universal values," he said.
“We have to help Ukrainians to defend their country as quickly as possible," he added. "Our days is their hours, our weeks are their days; they need weapons here and now …"
Morawiecki told CNN: "Russia is a big country, a big country of lots of commodities, raw materials, resources … They have a big army. This is why they can again and again regroup and reorganize."
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Source: PAP, CNN