YouSaid · the spoken record

Radek Sikorski

lines on the record: 53
first: 2025-11-10
most recent: 2025-11-10
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Well, Ukraine is planning for a three year war, and these colonial wars usually take about a decade. And I don't think Putin can sustain it for another three years. And we're about to supply Ukraine the means to resist for another three years out of the frozen Russian assets. Ukraine now makes almost half of its drones and cruise missiles in Ukraine. Putin has out underperformed. We thought he had the world's second army and he thought there would be a coup, it would be a cake walk, three-day operation, and more than 10 years he's still fighting in Donbass. I would not call that a victory.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But Europe approved Ukraine's status as a candidate, and Europe unanimously agreed to start negotiations. And, you know, Hungary is blocking progress, but it'll happen eventually. And let me say one thing. That if Britain chooses to reply to the European Union, I can trust you, I can promise you that whoever is in charge in Poland, we will vote in favor.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We have it in theory under the Lisbon Treaty, but what I believe we need is not only a common policy to reinvigorate Europe's defense industries, I'm in favor of the European Union starting to have some defense capability of our own so that we don't have to call on the United States in every emergency. We should be capable of sorting out some warlord in Libya or the Balkans next time around.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a fundamental constitutional issue. Europe is a confederation. In other words, an organization which ultimate sovereignty lies with the member states. And all historic confederations either became federations or ceased to exist. And when you look at our competition, they all have unity of command. We don't. We have a synchronization problem, which is particularly acute, obviously, in the area of defense because it's the core of sovereignty. This is a crisis in which I believe we should stick together because otherwise we'll be hanged separately, not only in the defense area, but particularly in the trade area.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Get that. It's amusing when my colleague, the finance minister, attends his meetings, his equivalents, asking how do you manage to have such a huge? And he says, well, I'd be eviscerated if I didn't. We will eat grass rather than become a Russian colony again.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We think that if Putin succeeded in conquering Ukraine, we would be next. And it's happened before, which is why we've been spending a solid 2% of GDP on defense for 20 years. And we are now spending 4.7% of GDP.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, we had an assault on freedom of debate. Under the heading that there are, that universities supposedly became, you know, the spiel, you know.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First of all, again, value what you have, the BBC, where facts are checked. You know, you might complain about slight bias this way or that way, but people don't outright invent stuff and they don't attack politicians in that kind of way, right? So yes, universities are also usually the first victim of populists because universities are autonomous and universities should and do care about truth, about establishing facts, about free inquiry and populists by definition don't like that.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's right. And among others, CDU. And being a good politician, he would always include a few sentences in the native language of that. Of that party. And so he said remotely, because this was during COVID, good luck in your deliberations, but think not only what's good for Germany, Fjord Deutschland, but primarily what's good for Europe. And so what they did, they took these two words. And they repeated it on main television news hundreds of times. Now, if you have this kind of bias, you cannot tolerate that. So we had to bring back professionalism to state media.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Same thing, yeah. I mean, the media, you know, imagine the BBC taken over by Breitbart, literally, to give an example, because people sometimes don't quite believe it. So during the COVID pandemic, Donald Tusk, he was at that time president of EPP Address the Congresses of various EPP parties.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, yes, I inherited more than 50% of ambassadors who were not diplomats who were party political ambassadors, plus some vacancies. So I'm trying to now make the Foreign Service professional again.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is very difficult to fix it once institutions lose their, it takes decades to build up authority. And only a few months to lose it.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Before these populist reforms, I never asked myself when going to court is this judge from left-wing or right-wing or, you know, who is he sympathetic to? And I'm afraid these days most people ask themselves what kind of judge he is politically. And that's a loss.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So in Poland until 10 years ago, we had a system basically of judges electing themselves with a minority being elected by parliament. And our nationalist competitors broke, in my view, broke the constitution by electing a much larger number of them by politicians. And so we now have judges elected by a previous system and judges elected under this politicized system. And what I will put to you is that it's all very complicated, but the function of the judiciary is not only to pass judgment, but also to maintain the appearance of impartiality. And whatever you think about the rights and wrong, that has certainly been lost.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The conclusion of this already 10 years of experiments in various countries with populism should be, in my view, that institutions are much more fragile than we think. Constitutions are only as good as the sense of probity and the willingness to stand up by the people who man them, who have the duties to uphold constitutions. I remember even in Britain, do you remember the headline with the portraits of judges, enemies of the people?”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, you know, in the Polish context, we feel that the enemy is in the east. We don't feel culturally or civilizationally threatened by the West. This is us, the pro-European part of the political spectrum. You know, my parents' generation and myself, we dreamt of Poland being normal when we were under communism and normal we defined as just a regular Western European country. And we've achieved that. At that time assaulted by communist propaganda talking about the rotten West. And now we have, you know, our competitors talking about rotten West. And it's just extraordinary because of cultural issues to do with sexual minorities and the pace of social change. And some people are being hoodwinked by that kind of simplistic propaganda.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I can quote you words and populist actions from literally the last 48 hours. So our opposition party has just had a huge convention at which the leader, the former prime minister, Kaczynski, said that Poland's independence is threatened by this German and French attempt to take away our statehood. This is at a time when there are Russian drones and missiles 250 kilometers from here killing people.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I'll refuse this invitation to interfere in the politics of our great ally. But as you know, there is a Chinese curse. May your dreams come true.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So our constitution makes the prime minister the head of the executive branch and the president is basically head of state and a representative of the country abroad with a veto power. So R. Charles is Charles III plus the veto.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sometimes asked, what's the difference between a foreign minister and the defense minister? But yes, I don't know exactly how it works in Britain, but in the Polish constitutional system, the ministry is just an addition to the person of the minister. You are responsible for foreign policy. And it carries a lot of responsibility. I was for four years a deputy, which helps to prepare you.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Obviously, there's a wave of criticism. What I don't get is how people can criticize Israel without mentioning what caused this current wave of violence. And it was a heinous terrorist attack by Hamas, which, by the way, destroyed the peace party in Israel and harmed the Palestinian cause.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no, no, no. Wait a second. Poland is in favor of a two state solution. Poland has recognized Palestine for decades. There was a fully accredited Palestinian ambassador in Warsaw, and we have repeatedly criticized the overuse of force by Israel, the breaking of international humanitarian law, and the illegal settlements in the West Bank. So, yes, you know, because of history. Here you are in Witch, which once had the largest ghetto. Second largest, I think, of the Warsaw. And so there is a lot of history. But we see the tragedy of both peoples.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You asked me what it was like to be in Britain, to arrive in Britain in the 1980s. I'll tell you what, if at that time someone would told me that there will come a moment when Poland will be in the EU and Britain will not be, and that in Britain they would be having a serious political debate about Poland possibly overtaking Britain economically, I would have said that's pure fantasy. And yet here we are.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, first of all, remember that in 2015, our populists won by a fluke. They got 38% of the vote, which in a proportional representation system doesn't normally give you an overall majority. Our left-wing party missed the 8% threshold for coalitions by 30,000 votes. And if they'd got the extra 30,000 votes, which was actually literally one television debate, everything would have been different. But yes, Poland has the same issues of populism as Britain, as France, as Germany, as the United States. And populists are skilled at proposing simple solutions to difficult problems. Also, electorates everywhere have told us, fix migration or else. Or you will choose people who will. And some cultural issues, I think, also play a role. I mean, this is a big debate which we are not going to resolve here now.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, since I have this experience, I have taken it upon myself to prevent the Polish people having the same trick played on them. The difficulty in Britain was that politicians felt constrained To counter the myths and the lies. And I do it almost every day so that the misrepresentation doesn't get accepted as reality. Because in Poland we have similar nationalists peddling similar lies. But in Poland we give counter to them. In your Brexit referendum, the government's argument was, yeah, well, this EU, you know, it's everything you say, but it's in our economic interest to stay. That's not a good enough argument. You have to make the case for, and we keep making the case for.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But not only You could not make out how a European directive is actually made by reading the British press. You were left with the impression that it's faceless bureaucrats in Brussels who cook it up and then impose it on the member states. That is absolutely not how a directive is made. For a directive to come into force, not only do you need an agreement of the member states and on majority of cases unanimously you need an agreement of the European Parliament and the Commission is not a bunch of faceless bureaucrats commissioners are appointed by democratically elected governments now that I know how it works because I've worked the system I don't know how you could make it even any more democratic than that”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I would. And the other way in which the seeds of Brexit were planted in the 1980s is that the British public was consistently misled by not just by politicians but also by the press about how the EU actually works. And confession. I was a Eurosceptic at that time because I was reading British, reputable British newspapers.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You asked me about Lady Thatcher, and I now think that the seeds of Brexit were planted in the 1980s. So on the one hand, it was under Margaret Thatcher that Britain signed the Single European Act, which made EU law a primary. And also it was a British invention to set up the single market. But there was an undertone of nationalism, of regarding You know, I now explained it to myself that former empires that have not been defeated in war find it psychologically impossible to live under rules that are not made by themselves, that are negotiated. In that sense, you're similar to Turkey. Although Turkey is now more integrated with the EU than Britain, which is sad.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it's even stranger than that. Our current opposition party in Poland, which is also nationalist, actually, when I was a member of the European Parliament, I saw them collaborating and cheering one another on. I think what unites them is hostility towards the European Union, which, by the way, your nationalists share. I was in the chamber in Strasbourg when Nigel Farage was making his last speech to the European Parliament. I hope he enjoys his European Parliament pension. I'm sure he's upset to be accepting it in Europe.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was at the height of the euro crisis. In Germany, I felt was being tardy in addressing the Greek financial crisis. That if Germany acted earlier, it could have been resolved with much smaller resources. And I actually repeat. This year in the Polish parliament over this discussion of German rearmament.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm sure that too. Then things started going wrong. You know, in this part of the world, we have more sensitive antenna for changes of Russian policy because it's potentially such a threat. So when he started, when he unveiled a plaque to the memory of Andropov on his former KGB boss on Ljubljanka, I remember thinking this is going in the wrong direction. And then when they changed school curricula to teach children a view of Tsarist and communist expansionist history and ideology, I thought this is not going to end well. And then I think the final straw was 2011. People forget, Arab Spring, when he saw Gaddafi emerging from that. Sua or Mubarak in an iron cage. And he saw huge demos in Moscow and St. Petersburg protesting his return to the Kremlin. I think he saw himself in the place of Mubarak and Gaddafi.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Obviously, not one cause. If you read Putin's plan for Russia as prime minister, it was a plan for modernization and not just military modernization, but a social modernization. And then I think he found that it was too difficult. There were too many oligarchic and bureaucratic interests.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And since then, he's become just a spokesman. But I wouldn't describe him as a survivor. You see, in an autocratic system like that, you can't say, Mr. President, I disagree with the policy I resign. No You serve at the dictator's pleasure”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Patriarch of Russia came, and with our church, they issued a statement on reconciliation modeled consciously. On the 1960s statement with the German bishops. So it seems to be slowly going maybe in the right direction”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was saying that it would be in our interest for Russia to fulfill NATO criteria, which is democracy, which is fixing your relationships with your neighbors. You know, if Russia fulfilled those conditions, it should be a different country. Know Putin came to Gda ⁇ sk. On the 80th anniversary of the Second World War, thereby acknowledging that that's when the war started, not with the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. There was a denial of the Stalinist narrative of history. Actually, he was the first leader of Russia to come to Katyn, the place of the murder of thousands of Polish POWs. We had a group on difficult issues, Polish and Russian historians established the difficult facts of common history, which is not a small thing because you can't really reconcile.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and you know, you were discussing the negotiating mandate for the European Commission to make this agreement. And people still remind me that we tried to normalize our relations with Russia, but I thought it was worth trying.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, Poland's relationship with Russia goes back 500 years, and they colonized us at the end of the 18th century, and we were a Russian colony for 123 years. So let's just remember that. They also invaded Poland together with Nazi Germany in 1939 and then subjected us to 45 years of communism. So, you know, it all has, there's a lot of history. Poland produces more history than can be consumed locally. But yes, it was President Obama who first said that the United States wanted a reset. You know, this was a time when I was first defense minister in 2005 and then Foreign Secretary when the European Union was negotiating an association agreement with Russia. Russia was saying we want economic integration with the West.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I helped to organize the first visit by Secretary General General of NATO, Manfred Werner, to Poland. And it was at that time that we stated for the first time that that's what we ultimately wanted to join while we were still having Soviet troops in our country who were only left in 1993.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Obviously, and that was my job, but it was more interesting than that. So this was literally just two years after the fall of communism. military council of the ministry, several members were members of the junta that ran Poland in the 1980s. It was a meeting of civilizations.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, and he was very successful. He became president of the Oxford Union. And, you know, Oxford Union is a unique institution that, for example, in Poland we don't have, where you learn rhetorical skills and where you learn, you know, after you've done politicking at the Oxford Union, normal politics is a piece of cake.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of course, you know that people confuse the Mujahideen with the Taliban. My guerrilla friends were not fanatics in the sense of being anti-Western. Quite the contrary. They were grateful for the assistance that they were getting. But, you know, these perceptions have changed even since then. You know, I remember, I don't know about you, but I thought that the intervention, American intervention in Afghanistan was justified because that's where Osama bin Laden was, the Taliban would refuse to give him up. So the US had to do what it had to do. And Iraq seemed like the war of choice that didn't go well. But now, actually, Iraq is doing well. And Afghanistan is back under Taliban rule. So, you know, yeah, you're right that what happens in future determines how we look at the past.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I did read my oral will, and I suppose so, but remember that at the time nobody was giving the Mujahideen any chance, a bunch of guerrillas facing the mighty Soviet Union. And my Afghan comrades would be telling me, and I also thought this was unrealistic, you know, we're not just fighting for ourselves, we are fighting to liberate the world from communism. Actually, they were right.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Made a dramatic difference on the battlefield because one day we were bombed and rocketed by Soviet hind helicopters from close quarters and as soon as the missiles were used they flew high and couldn't do anything to us. And that meant that the Soviets couldn't reinforce or resupply their garrisons. And so they were faced with a choice either to double the contingent or leave.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The contrast was considerable. So one day we are with friends having the last party at Oxford University and six weeks later I was in a cave in Afghanistan, a flee-infested cave, if I may say so. And I'd been preparing for that journey with Chris Robson, a friend from Maya. And we made it to the Kabul Jalalabad Road at a place called Jekdalek, which was actually the place where the last British square was cut down during the First Afghan War in 1830 or 31. He was filming, I was taking photographs. And then I spent six weeks in Tora Bora when it was our base. And I brought out the first pictures of Stinger missiles on the battlefield.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I, you know, Thatcher and Reagan spoke of the state as if it was not quite the enemy, but as if the market could fix everything. And actually, I now know that, I mean, even on purely financial grounds, you know, in most civilized countries, the state accounts for 40, 45 percent of GDP. So the quality of spending of almost half of your GDP, in other words, the quality of state institutions. Matters and it's also the quality of your judiciary, the quality of your administration of public services actually affects your economic performance a great deal.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was anti com And because Maggie Thatcher was anti communist and pro market, And she was tough on the Soviet Union. I thought I liked that. I now have a somewhat different view, but in those days, that was the most important thing.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was only 18, so I didn't have a record yet, which is why I could do it. But then you needed a visa. And then you needed a plane ticket to London, which was, you know, this was something you had to plan a year ahead. And the contrast was unbelievable. I mean, the iconic picture from communist Poland was a food queue. Today, Poland is a huge exporter of foodstuffs, of agricultural products, including to Britain. Most of your cider is made from Polish apples.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So Poland in the 70s, late 70s, early 80s was communist, but there was no terror. There was, I mean, people were jailed, people were interned, some people were killed during anti-communist demonstrations, but there wasn't mass terror. There wasn't even the kind of repression you have in Russia today, where you have three and a half thousand political prisoners. But Poland was impoverished by communism. We were at the end of the 1980s, we were the poorest by comparison with the European average in our thousand-year history. So our GDP per capita was a third of the European average. And going from communist Poland to Britain was a really big deal. It was really difficult, not only getting a passport was not automatic. You had to To the communist authorities.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Basic and secondary education was actually then and is still pretty good in Poland. So we give good education for the great majority of people. Whereas you have these elite universities and elite schools. So it's the other way around in Poland.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Show, and I attended an interview. And I remember being asked, so what do you think about Marxism at the interview? And I said, I come from a communist Poland. I have not yet met a Marxist, but maybe I'll meet one here.”
2025-11-10 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 161. Putin, Trump, and 500 Years of Resisting Russia (Radek Sikorski) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source