Poland was the poor second cousin to its EU peers when it first joined the EU two decades ago. But a flourishing economy, its frontline position and growing military might means it’s been promoted to the top table as the leaders of the most powerful countries in Europe meet in Paris on February 17 to respond to US President Donald Trump’s decision to exclude Europe from the upcoming Ukraine ceasefire talks.

The Paris summit is expected to discuss the US decision, following comments made by special envoy to Ukraine retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) at the weekend.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, said he was “very glad that President Macron has called our leaders to Paris” to discuss “in a very serious fashion” the challenges posed by Trump.

“President Trump has a method of operating which the Russians call razvedka boyem – reconnaissance through battle: you push and you see what happens, and then you change your position ... and we need to respond,” the Polish minister said speaking in Munich at the weekend.

Sikorski said the current situation was both “a crisis and a result” of Europe having consumed a “peace dividend” for too long, adding on February 15 that he was not too concerned that Europe had not been consulted ahead of Trump’s phone call with Putin last week.

European countries will not create one unified army in response to threats from Russia, said Sikorski in an interview with state TV broadcast on February 15, responding to Zelenskiy calls for the creation of an “armed forces of Europe,’ but he added that he was a supporter of boosting Europe’s defences.

He went on to say that the Trump-Putin “call was a mistake because it vindicates President Putin and lowers morale in Ukraine” but asserted that, sooner or later, Europe would have to be involved in talks on Ukraine’s future security.

“But when President Trump says that as part of a deal there will have to be European troops [safeguarding a deal] then it will be up to us to supply them, so sooner or later we will have to be involved,” he said.

Sending peacekeepers to Ukraine to police a proposed demilitarised zone (DMZ), one of the options on the table for ending the war, has been championed by French President Emmanuel Macron, who called the meeting.

The White House is also interested in the idea, and Trump has already made it clear that no US troops will be sent to Ukraine. Washington sent out a questionnaire last week asking what EU countries are willing to do to keep the peace in Ukraine after a ceasefire. It includes six questions including a request for an indication of how many troops they would be willing to contribute to a peacekeeping force, sources told Reuters.

Tusk said in December in a meeting with Macron that currently Poland has no plans to send peacekeepers to Ukraine. But has said at the same meeting that Europe expected to be able to “work closely” with the new Trump administration, rather than be completely excluded from the discussions on the future of Europe’s security. Poignantly at that meeting, both Tusk and Macron emphasised that no solution affecting Ukraine will be made without Kyiv and any agreement to end the fighting will be negotiated by Ukraine and with the aim of securing Ukraine’s interests.

Trump said that Europe needs to “do more” for its own security and has threatened to not honour US’ Nato obligations for any country that has not spent the mandated 2% of GDP on defence. More recently he called for Nato members to spend 5% of GDP on arms, a call which most EU countries have rejected.

Part of Ukraine’s problem has been that while the EU has thrown vocal support behind Kyiv in its conflict with Russia, it has not matched the words with actions. As bne IntelliNews has been reporting for two years, Europe was extremely slow to sign off on military procurement contracts with privately-owned arms producers that would allow them to ramp up production. An EU promise to provide Ukraine with a million artillery shells by March 2023 was missed and only fulfilled nine months later.

Moreover, as the US wound down deliveries from its own stockpiles to Ukraine last year, the burden has shifted to Europe, which provides most of Ukraine’s imported military hardware and has drastically deleted its own stocks. Germany in particular, which has both the largest standing army and defence sector, will take decades to rebuild it to 2004 levels, according to the government. The report from former Italian Prime Minister and ex-European Central Bank boss Mario Draghi released at the end of last year also highlighted the sorry state of Europe’s defence sector after decades of underinvestment and called for massive investments of €800bn per year to bring Europe’s production up to speed.

Against this, Russian President Vladimir Putin rapidly put Russia’s economy on a war footing in the first year of the war and is currently outproducing all of Europe combined in production. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy admitted during his MSC speech that it will be “very difficult” to continue the war without US support.

Poland, however, has increased its defence spending in its 2025 budget to 4.7% of GDP – the highest level in Europe – and plans to triple the size of its military and create the largest conventional army in Europe.

At the same time, Poland has emerged as Europe’s growth leader and with its increasing economic clout it has also been promoted to the top tier of European politics. It is notable that Poland, currently holding the EU rotating presidency, was invited to Paris along with the UK, Italy and Germany after it has emerged as a major military power in Europe.

Several items are on the table in Paris, including the position Europe should adopt on Ukraine’s future membership of Nato, sending European peacekeepers to Ukraine should a deal be struck and what security guarantees Europe can offer Ukraine – a key demand of Zelenskiy - either through Nato or some European force.

After Ukraine’s hopes for rapid accession to Nato, the central demand in Zelenskiy’s victory plan, were dashed by Nato General Secretary Mark Rutte who said Ukraine was “never promised Nato membership” he called on Europe to create an “armed forces of Europe” at the weekend, saying Ukraine could play a key role as it already has a million men under arms.

Macron has also favoured moving Europe out from under the US security umbrella and taking more responsibility for its own defence. The French president also did a volte-face on providing Ukraine with strong security guarantees last year, but the rest of the EU has dithered on promising military support should Ukraine be attacked again.

The 2023 initiative, devised by France, also seeks to weaken Europe’s dependence on the US security umbrella – another one of Marcon’s initiatives that did not prove popular. Macron’s security deal proposal has encountered opposition from several "neutral" EU member states, including Austria, Ireland, Cyprus and Malta, the Financial Times reported. Macron argued that Europe was overly dependent on the US security umbrella and said that the EU should become “the third superpower” – a call that looks prescient now that the US looks like it is preparing to throw Ukraine under the bus without consulting the EU on an issue that is fundamental to the Continent’s security.

The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, who will travel to Paris on February 17, seems to agree and said in a social media post: “Europe urgently needs its own plan of action concerning Ukraine and our security, or else other global players will decide about our future. Not necessarily in line with our own interest … This plan must be prepared now. There’s no time to lose.”

Tusk will play a key role in the meeting and remains an ardent supporter of the Ukrainian cause, while UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, on the other hand, said ahead of the summit that his primary goal is, “to ensure we keep the US and Europe together. We cannot allow any divisions in the alliance to distract from the external enemies we face.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is somewhere in the middle; Germany has been the most generous of all the EU members with its financial aid to Ukraine, but extremely cautious with military supplies, afraid of provoking Russia into a direct conflict with Nato. Berlin has come under heavy criticism for not providing Ukraine with its powerful Tartus cruise missiles, while both France and the UK have supplied Kyiv with their highly effective Storm Shadow missiles.

Polish military

Poland meanwhile is in a strong position to support Ukraine militarily and Tusk pledged to put the Ukraine crisis at the top of his agenda as EU president.

Under the Homeland Defence Act, Poland has significantly boosted its defence budget, allocating PLN187bn zlotys ($48.7bn) for 2025, aiming to reach 4.7% of its GDP. The country plans to enlarge its military personnel to 300,000 by 2035, up from the current 207,500, making it Nato's third-largest army as well as adding plans to introduce a voluntary basic military service.

Poland has also been a close ally of the US, purchasing much of its equipment there - including orders for 250 M1A2 Abrams tanks - as well another 1,000 K2 Black Panther tanks from South Korea.

In addition, Poland hosts a rotating force of 10,000 US troops on its territory, with the government covering the cost of its maintenance and infrastructure investments. Warsaw has been pushing Trump to make the force permanent, but the White House has so far resisted, leaving the option of withdrawing the troops open.

As a frontline state in the rising tensions with Russia in Europe, Poland’s "East Shield" initiative aims to fortify Poland's eastern borders with Belarus and Russia's Kaliningrad region.

Military analysts have long assumed that if Russia were to launch a full-scale military invasion of Europe, a large force would come through the so-called Suwalki Gap that would only take five days to cut the Baltic states off from Nato support, overrunning the Baltic Sea coast making the Polish border the frontline in a European war. Warsaw has already invested PLN10bn into physical barriers, advanced surveillance systems, and infrastructure development, to bolster its defences.

News wires with the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) positions on the frontline report that the Ukrainian troops were very disconcerted by the Putin-Trump call and are afraid that it will undermine US support for their three-year struggle against the invading Russian forces.