Russians are expected to vote next weekend to re-elect President  Putin, extending his rule in the Kremlin beyond Stalin’s 30 years. Facing the prospect of six more years of Putinism, Europe is rearming. Poland is building the largest NATO army in Europe. Historically the Catholic counterweight to Orthodox Russia, Poland today has no illusions about the man in the Kremlin. 

“The times of peace are over, the post-war era is over,” Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, warned Thursday at the congress of the European People’s Party at Bucharest. “We live in new times — in the pre-war era.”

Tomorrow, Polish  unity will be on display when Poland’s two big political rivals, Mr. Tusk and President Duda, meet President Biden at the White House. One goal of the visit will be to unblock American military aid to Ukraine. While a Republican faction holds up aid, election strategists may remind  politicians that Polish-Americans and other Americans of Eastern European origin regularly cast about 10 percent of all votes in federal elections.

Far from the American political fray, Poles fear that Ukraine’s shooting war could spread west. Last month, a poll found that almost half of Polish respondents saw a Russian attack on their country as likely. In the poll, conducted by United Surveys, 12 percent of respondents were “certain” that an attack will take place and 35 percent saw it as “likely.”

Few Poles were relieved when Mr. Putin told Tucker Carlson last month: “We have no interest in Poland.” In the two-hour interview, the Russian leader went on to cite “Poland,” “Polish,” or “Poles” a total of 49 times.

“We have had dozens of wars with Russia, very bloody wars with Russia, more than with any other country,”  a fellow of the Jamestown Foundation, Janusz Bugajski, tells the Sun. “No official in Warsaw can ever trust that Russian officials are telling the truth. There is always the suspicion that Russians are trying to take back parts of their old empire.”

After Russia launched its attack on Ukraine two years ago, Poland reacted by sending its Soviet-era tanks and jets to Ukraine — and then buying NATO-standard replacements, largely from America and South Korea. Determined to double its army to 300,000 men and women, Poland is the NATO nation spending the highest portion of its gross domestic product on defense – 4 percent.

More importantly, half of that spending goes for equipment, including 366 Abrams tanks and  96 Apache helicopters from America and 980 K2 tanks and 648 self-propelled howitzers from South Korea.

“For ground-based deterrence and defense against Russian incursions in Europe’s Eastern Flank, Europe will increasingly rely on Poland,” a former American ambassador to Poland, Paul Jones, writes in a recent Center for European Policy Analysis essay headlined: “Poland Becomes a Defense Colossus.”

While Russia could first stub its toe on Poland, other European countries prepare to block any Russian move west. Last week, Sweden joined NATO, ending two centuries of neutrality.  Not only does Sweden’s admission effectively turn the Baltic Sea into a NATO sea, Sweden brings to the alliance high performance Saab fighter jets and submarines designed to operate in the relatively shallow waters of the Baltic.

“Swedes realized something very profound: that if Putin was willing to try to erase one neighbor from the map, then he might well not stop there,” Secretary Blinken said Thursday at Washington on receiving NATO accession documents from Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

President Macron  is surprising some by proving to be one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters. On Thursday, the French leader met behind closed doors with French opposition party leaders and declared that there would be “no limits” to his government’s support for Ukraine.  Pointing on a map to potential Russian invasion routes to Kyiv and Odessa, he said that if such attacks start, there will be “no red lines for France.”

Separately, Mr. Macron announced that France, Germany, and Italy are negotiating the return of weapons previously sold to Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. On Friday, the French defence minister, Sebastien Lecornu, told reporters at Paris:  “Three French companies will be setting up partnerships with Ukrainian companies, in particular in the drone and land equipment sectors, to produce spare parts on Ukrainian soil, and perhaps ammunition in the future.” Production is to start  this summer.

Some French opposition leaders have been taken aback by Mr. Macron’s increasingly hardline approach to Russian expansionism. This week, French parliamentarians will have a chance to debate the policy. A new, bilateral France-Ukraine security pact is to come to a vote in the National Assembly.

Not stopping with Ukraine, Mr.  Macron met Thursday in Paris with Moldova’s president, Maria Sandu. The Frenchman vowed France’s “unwavering support” for Ms. Sandu’s nation as tensions mount between Moldova and Russia-funded separatists. France and Moldova signed a bilateral defense deal. By summer, France is to open a defense mission in Chisinau, the capital. With Moldova to hold a referendum on joining the European Union later this year, Ms. Sandu, a pro-European, said she feels the heat.

“The regime in Moscow seeks to control my country through energy blackmail, sponsoring protests, running disinformation campaigns, launching cyber attacks, interfering in our elections, pouring in dirty money and even attempting a coup,” she said at Paris. “If the aggressor is not stopped, he will keep going, and the front line will keep moving closer. Closer to us. Closer to you.”

Reflecting heightened tensions, Mr. Macron on Sunday postponed an announced trip to Kyiv. Analysts in Paris noted that the postponement comes after a Russian missile on Wednesday missed by about 300 yards the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, and President Zelensky, who were visiting Odessa.  

“As we entered our cars, we heard a large explosion,” Mr. Mitsotakis later told reporters of the rocket that killed five people. “It’s one thing to see or hear the description from the media or from President Zelenskyy, with whom we communicate regularly, and it’s completely different to experience the war first hand,” added the Greek leader, who was making his first visit to Ukraine since Russia invaded.  Home to a small Greek diaspora and a Greece-funded museum, Odessa played a role in the Greek Revolution of 1821, the successful uprising against Ottoman rule.

“That’s another reason that all European leaders should visit Ukraine,” said Mr. Mitsotakis, the eighth NATO leader to negotiate a bilateral security pact with Ukraine. On the tour, a Ukrainian Navy commander told reporters that Russia launched 880 attack drones and 170 missiles on the ports of the Odessa region since abandoning a grain export deal last July. 

The deputy chairman of Russia’s security council, Dmitry Medvedev, later said it was obvious “to everyone” that there had been no plan to kill the Greek leader. Traditionally, Greek public opinion is moderately friendly to Russia, a fellow Orthodox nation. However, the near miss made big headlines back in Athens.