Poland's deputy prime minister says Russia could launch a "false flag operation" to justify an attack on a NATO state

By

June 25, 2026 / 11:09 AM EDT

/ CBS News

Add CBS News on Google

Gdánsk, Poland — Poland's Deputy Prime Minister Radek Sikorski told CBS News in an interview that he would not rule out the possibility of Russia staging a "false flag operation" in the next two years to justify an attack on a NATO member state. "I wouldn't exclude the Russians doing some kind of false flag operation against Russian territory in order to have a pretext for hitting one of the NATO countries," Sikorski said. "We need to communicate to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin that we know what he's up to and that we will not be taken in and that this would be completely unacceptable, and we would defend every inch of NATO territory."Sikorski said he believes Ukraine's successful resistance — which analysts say has even started to change the tide of the war in Kyiv's favor this year — has so far deprived Russia of the resources it would need to mount an effective invasion of NATO's eastern flank.