Europe has entered ‘pre-war era’, says Poland’s PM Donald Tusk

London: Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, has warned that Europe has entered a “pre-war era” reminiscent of the late 1930s, and says if Ukraine is defeated by Russia then nobody in Europe will feel safe.

Tusk, who previously served as prime minister between 2007 and 2014, used his first foreign interview since his return to urge the leaders of his neighbouring countries to do more to bolster their defences.

His comments come amid a fresh barrage of Russian missiles targeting Ukraine, which has intensified its bombardment of several cities, including the capital Kyiv, in recent weeks.

Ukraine’s air force said it had shot down 58 drones and 26 missiles and the government said energy infrastructure had been damaged in six regions, in the west, centre and east of the country. Last week a Russian missile also entered Polish airspace, prompting Warsaw to activate F-16 fighter jets.

A former president of the European Council, Tusk said Russian President Vladimir Putin had already blamed Ukraine for the jihadist attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall without any evidence and “evidently feels the need to justify increasingly violent attacks on civil targets in Ukraine”.

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“I don’t want to scare anyone, but war is no longer a concept from the past,” he said. “It’s real and it started over two years ago.”

“I know it sounds devastating, especially to people of the younger generation, but we have to mentally get used to the arrival of a new era… The pre-war era. I don’t exaggerate. This is becoming more and more apparent every day.”

Tusk said regardless of whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump won November’s US presidential election, he argued Europe would become a more attractive partner to the US if it became more self-sufficient militarily.