Polish Foreign Minister Radoslav Sikorski told the BBC ahead of the NATO summit in Washington that he believed Russia's economy should begin to collapse under the weight of war and sanctions in a year or two, the BBC's Russian service wrote. .
"Putin does not understand the psychology of democracies. He thinks he can intimidate us with this brutality, but he doesn't understand that it only strengthens the resolve of our public,'' Sikorski told the BBC's Newshour program ahead of the NATO summit in Washington, which starts on Tuesday night.
"Ukraine gets serious military and material aid, three hundred billion so far, plus interest on frozen Russian assets, plus its own military budget, plus sanctions against Russia, plus weapons now hitting Russian oil refineries. "I think the Russian economy will start to collapse in a year or two," said the Polish minister.
"We just have to stay the course. We have 20 times more resources than Russia, and Russia is running out of money," added Sikorsky.
The Kiel Institute for World Economics estimates that the U.S. and Europe spent about 180 billion euros on aid to Ukraine through early June, not the $300 billion or euros Sikorsky said.
Part of that 180 billion is the cost of aid already provided, and the other part is money already allocated for aid that has not yet been delivered to Ukraine.