DHAKA: Polish anti-communist icon Lech Walesa said Poland should procure nuclear weapons as a safeguard against Russia, which it blames for stoking the crisis in neighbouring Ukraine.

‘Poland needs to stand up to Russia,’ the Nobel Peace laureate, who spearheaded Poland’s democracy movement and became its first post-communist president, said in an interview published Wednesday, reports The Straits Times.

EU and Nato member Poland has been rattled by Russia’s actions in Ukraine, including its March annexation of the Crimean peninsula and suspected backing of rebels in the east.

Russian president Vladimir ‘Putin has been trying to intimidate us with his nuclear weapons, so why shouldn’t we have our own arsenal?’ Walesa told the Rzeczpospolita daily.

‘We should borrow, lease nuclear weapons and show Putin that if a Russian soldier poses one foot on our land uninvited, we will attack. Just to be clear,’ the 70-year-old said.

BDST: 1929 HRS, SEP 24, 2014