{"id":469642,"date":"2025-10-02T23:28:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T23:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/469642\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T23:28:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T23:28:22","slug":"there-is-naivety-in-ireland-over-russian-threat-says-taoiseach-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/469642\/","title":{"rendered":"There is \u2018naivety\u2019 in Ireland over Russian threat, says Taoiseach \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a level of \u201cnaivety\u201d in Ireland about the threat Russia<\/a> poses to Europe, while Vladimir Putin<\/a> has shown \u201cno sign\u201d that he wants to end his war in Ukraine<\/a>, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> has said. <\/p>\n

European Union<\/a> member states near Russia, such as the Baltic countries, feel that threat as an \u201cexistential\u201d one, the Fianna F\u00e1il leader said. <\/p>\n

Mr Martin was speaking in Copenhagen on his way to a meeting of European heads of state and government, a day after a summit of the EU\u2019s 27 leaders met to discuss the ongoing war in Ukraine and how to defend themselves against Kremlin-backed sabotage and interference. <\/p>\n

Russia, rather than Europe, must bear the cost of the reconstruction of Ukraine after the war, Mr Martin said. <\/p>\n

A plan to effectively confiscate Russian assets frozen in the EU under sanctions, in order to fund a huge loan to Ukraine, is \u201cvery new territory\u201d, Mr Martin said. \u201cThere has to be a deterrence against the waging of war, of illegal wars,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI witnessed over the years the European Union funding the reconstruction of so many areas that have been ravaged by war, and that\u2019s not sustainable into the future,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The \u20ac140 billion loan to Ukraine financed by the frozen Russian assets would only be subject to repayment if Russia agrees to pay reparations to Kyiv to cover the cost of rebuilding Ukraine after the war. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Drones, frozen billions and a Hungarian villain: Copenhagen\u2019s Scandi-noir summitOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Luxembourg and Belgium, plus the European Central Bank, have expressed concerns about such a plan running afoul of international law. <\/p>\n

Speaking on Thursday, Mr Martin said Russia ultimately must pay for its decision to invade Ukraine, which started Europe\u2019s biggest war in 80 years. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere has to be a financial cost to the waging of war, there has to be reparations \u2026 No one wants to be in these positions, but the waging of war against a country like Ukraine has huge implications all around. It\u2019s not business as usual,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Mr Putin is behind a \u201creckless\u201d pattern of incursions and interference in EU states, Mr Martin said. <\/p>\n

A number of Russian drones crossed into Poland in recent weeks, while many suspect Russia\u2019s hand in instances of rogue drones that shut down several airports in Denmark last week. <\/p>\n

There was a \u201cvery serious sense\u201d of the Russian threat when EU leaders sat down together on Wednesday, Mr Martin said. \u201cIt seems to me that there\u2019s a degree of naivety back in Ireland in respect of that,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

This can be seen when one considers \u201ceverything that\u2019s happened over the last number of weeks and months, in terms of drone incursions, in terms of maritime activity among cables\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly the member states on the eastern European side, the Baltic States in particular, feel this threat and feel it\u2019s existential,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is a level of \u201cnaivety\u201d in Ireland about the threat Russia poses to Europe, while Vladimir Putin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,1699,681,332,657,9041,333],"class_list":{"0":"post-469642","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european-union","11":"tag-micheal-martin","12":"tag-russia","13":"tag-ukraine","14":"tag-ukraine-crisis","15":"tag-vladimir-putin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115307171262769761","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}