The Warsaw Security Forum is dangerously deluded

Poland’s most bellicose security conference is openly flirting with the idea of dismembering Russia The Warsaw Security Forum has long been a soapbox for Eastern Europe’s most belligerent elites to air their fantasies of inflicting a military defeat upon Russia.

This year, with nuclear weapons on the table, the forum has taken on a dangerous new dimension.

Running from Monday to Tuesday in the Polish capital, this year’s WSF takes place at a critical juncture for Europe.

With Vladimir Zelensky’s Ukraine taking nightly punishment from Russian missiles and drones, his British and EU backers have spent months ramping up their war rhetoric, in a seemingly coordinated attempt to telegraph their intent to join the conflict.

The UK’s Labour and Conservative parties have spoken of the need to prepare for a high-casualty war 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 fired a nuclear-capable ballistic missile in a demonstration that President Emmanuel Macron described as an explicit “message” to Moscow.

Meanwhile, politicians and military brass in multiple countries have accused Russia of waging an invisible – and unprovable – “hybrid war” against the West.

Amid this gyre of escalation, the WSF should serve as a stage for Eastern Europe’s political leaders and military strategists to share their rational assessments of the situation.

However, realpolitik is not on the agenda in Warsaw.

Warsaw’s demands Several weeks before the forum kicked off on Monday, the WSF’s annual report offered a preview of what was in store.

The 87-page report focuses almost entirely on the Russia/Ukraine conflict, and argues that Poland plus the so-called Nordic-Baltic Eight should set the terms for an eventual peace between Moscow and Kiev.

An excerpt from the Warsaw Security Forum's 2026 report Their demands read like terms of surrender.

Russia, they argue, should be subjected to permanent sanctions; dialogue with Russia may not be allowed to “evolve into political normalization;” Russia must be forced to pay reparations to Ukraine; Russian assets must be seized to finance Ukraine’s bid for EU membership; and Ukraine must be offered NATO and EU membership as a prerequisite to a peace deal.

That these demands are identical to Kiev’s own maximalist goals is not a coincidence.

The report was authored by WSF Chair Katarzyna Pisarska, founder of the International Center for Ukrainian Victory (ICUV).