Former Leader of Poland Says Putin Has Given Us The Perfect Opportunity For A Final Blow

The former president of Poland Lech Walesa discussing the crisis in Ukraine on Good Morning New Hampshire and the massive humantarian effort underway for refugees who fled to the country.

“We have to help and assist in the day to day crisis. We have to find a solution.   The second is it starts with you. The United States needs to lead the world.  Even if we defeat Russia, there would be another Putin”, Walea said.

Jack Heath asked the first democratically elected leader of Poland if he felt the United States was doing enough to help Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky he responded through an interpreter, “We have to do everything we can to help Ukraine.  I can observe that you have been doing the right job.  Your President is doing the right thing”.

When asked if he thought Russian President Vladimir Putin was of sound mind Walesa said, “I believe a wise and healthy man would not be making the decisions he has been making”.

Walesa, founder of Poland’s Solidarity labor union, was awarded the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize for his struggle for workers’ rights.

The Nobel Committee’s citation described Walesa as an “inspiration and an example” and as “an exponent of the active longing for peace and freedom which exists, in spite of unequal conditions, unconquered in all the peoples of the world.”

Walesa led a shipyard strike in Gdansk in August 1980 that sparked the creation of a free labor union, called Solidarity.

The union was eventually banned, martial law declared and Walesa interned for 11 months.

Walesa is in Concord to give a speech at the State House and he will be in attendance at Saturday’s commencement at New England College.