On NATO's eastern flank, US policy shift stokes security fears

By Kuba Stezycki, Janis Laizans and Alan Charlish

WARSAW/RIGA (Reuters) - Polish call centre worker Katarzyna Paprota, 48, says the dramatic shift in United States policy towards Russia and Ukraine under President Donald Trump gives her reason to fear for the future.

"The foreign policy of the United States scares me a lot," she told Reuters in Warsaw.

"I had this feeling of stability, and after Poland joined NATO, after it joined the European Union, I thought we had this moment of peace, but it turned out that it really was just a moment," she said.

There is a lot of anxiety, she added, speaking by the Polish capital's soaring Palace of Culture and Science, commissioned in the 1950s by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and which for many Poles symbolises Russian domination during communism.

Trump's moves on Ukraine, Russia and European defence in recent days have upended old certainties that Washington would serve as a guarantor of the continent's security.

And with Trump appearing to blame Kyiv for starting the conflict while at the same time thawing relations with Moscow, some Poles fear that Russian President Vladimir Putin will feel emboldened to invade more countries.

Putin has in the past dismissed claims that Russia would attack a NATO country if it won the war in Ukraine.

"Trump is unpredictable," said Henryk Marut, a 66-year-old armed forces veteran. "What Trump is doing and what he said today, that it is Ukraine's fault, that Ukraine started this war, well, that is a bit too much."

"I was born in the 1950s and I remember the times when they (the Russians) ruled Poland more than we did... That is why I am very afraid that they may not stop in Ukraine."

Latvian pensioner Silvija Spriedniece, 84, also worries about possible Russian aggression.

"I am not a politician, but I understand that this Trump does not bode well for us," she told Reuters in Riga. "Putin is already an aggressor like Stalin, Hitler and all the rest… We cannot expect anything good there."

Pensioner Imants Robeznieks, 73, said that he hopes Europe can come up with an appropriate response.

"It is disturbing to me that Putin and Trump, or vice versa, have really got along," he said. "Hopefully now Paris will think of something, Europe will think of something... otherwise it will go badly."

(Reporting by Alan Charlish and Kuba Stezycki in Warsaw, Janis Laizans in Riga, Editing by Alexandra Hudson)