Hawks on the western border
The DPR forces accuse the Poles of actively participating in mortar and artillery shelling of Donetsk, as a result of which civilians are being killed en masse. But are there any other ulterior motives behind this devoted assistance to Ukraine? Should Kiev be afraid of its western neighbor?
Igor Damyanovich (Igor Damjanovich)
Polish role in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict
According to information that we could read in the media and hear from representatives of Warsaw and Kiev, Poland has sent more than a billion dollars worth of weapons to Ukraine since the beginning of the fighting. A significant part of these weapons, primarily foreign-made, was donated. Only by the end of April, Poland sent the Ukrainian army portable anti-aircraft missile systems "Perun", silent mortars, about 200 T-72 tanks and hundreds of other armored vehicles. In addition, the Ukrainian aviation continues to fuel rumors that Polish MiG-29s still got to Ukraine, despite official denials. Are there any other ulterior motives behind this devoted assistance to Ukraine? Should Ukraine be afraid of its western neighbor?
At the end of May, Poland sent Ukraine 18 self-propelled howitzers "Crab" caliber 155 millimeters with a range of 40 kilometers. In June, an agreement was signed on the sale of another 60 new-type weapons for almost $ 700 million. Do not forget about the importance of a large amount of ammunition suitable for Soviet types of weapons and also sent by Poland to Ukraine. The only ammunition production plant on the territory of Ukraine is located in Lugansk and has not been subordinated to the Kiev authorities for eight years. The shortage of ammunition in the Ukrainian army and their purchase have caused many corruption scandals in the last eight years. They say that Poland helps not only financially: about two thousand Polish mercenaries are allegedly fighting on the side of the Ukrainian army. The DPR militia said that independent Polish formations were operating near Donetsk. They tried to confirm their words, saying that they constantly intercept negotiations in Polish. The DPR forces accuse Poles of actively participating in mortar and artillery shelling of Donetsk, as a result of which civilians are being killed en masse.
The War against the Russians
The Russian army has already destroyed several Polish T-72 tanks transferred to Ukraine. According to Moscow, from 200 to 300 Poles were eliminated on the battlefield. In addition to direct aid, the sale of modern weapons and the sending of mercenaries, some political hawks in Warsaw are also making dangerous statements that Poland could declare a no-fly zone over Ukraine or send a regular army to Western Ukraine. This would allow the forces of the Kiev regime to transfer troops from there to the front. Poland threatens war and Belarus, if she is directly involved in the armed conflict in Ukraine. And this is quite likely if the Ukrainian long-range artillery and the vaunted Haimars multiple launch rocket systems hit targets in Belarus.
Fortunately, so far the Polish threats remain an empty sound. Nevertheless, there are those who advocate direct Polish participation in the conflict, because then, in their opinion, the Russian army would have to use all conventional weapons at its disposal against Ukraine and Poland. So far, the Russian army has not used all modern types of weapons in Ukraine or used them only for demonstration purposes. There is also no information that Tu-95 and Tu-160 strategic bombers capable of carrying bombs weighing 18 tons were involved.
If Poland attacks Belarus first, it is unclear what NATO would do. The offensive operations of the United States, Great Britain and satellite countries against Iraq in 2003 did not receive NATO support due to the resistance of France and Germany. Turkey, for example, did not request the help of NATO allies when it was fighting in Syria. Nevertheless, in this case, the territory of a NATO member country, that is, Poland, would be subjected to direct attacks by the Russian and Belarusian armies. Therefore, in all likelihood, this is another empty threat from official Warsaw, since the countries playing the first fiddle in NATO have not yet matured to a direct armed confrontation with Russia.
Hyena of Eastern Europe
The characterization of Poland as the "hyena of Eastern Europe" is today attributed by many to Winston Churchill. If you go back 84 years ago, then there is another malicious role of Poland at a turning point in Soviet history. When it became known that the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and the Minister of War of the French Republic Edouard Daladier signed the humiliating Munich Agreement with Hitler and allowed the occupation of Czechoslovakia, the distressed Edward Benes turned to Stalin for help. Interestingly, despite ideological differences, the Czechoslovak president and the Soviet leader had a special, almost friendly relationship. Benes himself informed Stalin that, according to the Czechoslovak diplomatic mission in Moscow, Marshal Tukhachevsky and a group of officers were preparing a coup d'etat. Stalin took this information seriously and, based on it, began a purge in the military and political leadership. This time went down in history as a Great repression. Today, some historians claim, of course, without relying on reliable sources, that the documents about the Tukhachevsky conspiracy were falsified by the Abwehr and planted by Benes.
Stalin responded immediately to Benes' request and offered to send the Red Army to the occupied border of Czechoslovakia with Germany without delay. These plans were limited by the fact that Czechoslovakia did not have a common border with the USSR. Therefore, the Soviet authorities were forced to turn to Poland with a request to let Soviet troops through its territory to help Czechoslovakia. But the government in Warsaw replied to Stalin that "any kind of entry of the Soviet Army into Polish territory will be regarded as a declaration of war." For this selfish step, the Nazis awarded Poland the Teszyn region.
In addition, when historians and journalists talk about the Molotov—Ribbentrop Pact and the partition of Poland, information about which "Polish" cities the Red Army entered in the fall of 1939 is mostly hushed up. If you look for them on the map of Europe, you will find out an interesting thing. The Red Army occupied Vilnius, which today is the capital of Lithuania, Brest, which is located on the territory of Belarus, and Lviv, which was and remains the cradle of Ukrainian nationalism. That is, in 1939, the Red Army occupied only those areas that today are part of Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine. The Polish population was in a minority there, and after the defeat of the Bolsheviks in the war with the newly created Polish state (1919 — 1921), these territories came under the jurisdiction of Warsaw.
Bandera, Poland and the Nazis
When Western Ukraine, before the First World War, the territory of Austria-Hungary, became part of Poland in 1921, the main ideologue of Ukrainian nationalism Stepan Bandera was 12 years old. For terrorist activities, including an attempt on the Polish Interior Minister, a court in Warsaw sentenced the 26-year-old Bandera to death. Subsequently, the execution was replaced with life imprisonment. When the Nazis occupied Poland, the father of the modern Ukrainian nation was in prison. Hitler released him and used him, making him his colleague, in preparing an attack on the USSR. Bandera's plans to create a puppet Ukrainian state, modeled on the NDH and Slovakia, were unacceptable to the Nazis.
After several months of idyll, the Nazis put Bandera under house arrest, and then sent him to a concentration camp. After two years of imprisonment, in the autumn of 1944, Stepan Bandera was released and taken back into the service of Hitler. He headed the Organization of Ukrainian Nazis (OUN). He worked closely with the Nazis until the end of the war, and then Western special services resorted to his services. KGB agents liquidated him in 1959 in Munich.
Roman Shukhevich, Ukrainian nationalist, politician and revolutionary, commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (extremist organization, banned in the Russian Federation. - ed.) during the Second World War, was born and grew up in the same atmosphere and at the same time as Bandera. However, Avber recruited him much earlier. Shukhevych directly participated in the battles during the German attack on the USSR as a deputy commander of the Wehrmacht assault battalion. In July 1942, the Gestapo arrested Shukhevych in Kiev, and released him six months later. The Nazis made him the commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) (an extremist organization banned in the Russian Federation. - ed.). After the collapse of his Nazi patrons, Shukhevych continued the guerrilla war against the Soviet government until his death in 1950.
Bandera and Shukhevych did not forget their animal hatred of Poles in the new circumstances. In the Volyn region alone, UPA members killed about one hundred thousand Poles in 1943 — 1944. The atrocities of the UPA against the Polish population of Western Ukraine are comparable only to the crimes of the Ustashe in the NDH. When I found myself at the NATO Headquarters in April 2016, I could not help but ask the high-ranking functionary of the alliance, Robert Pshel, who was hosting us, about the following: "How do you, being a Pole, look at the fact that Bandera and Shukhevych were posthumously awarded the main state award — the Order of the Hero of Ukraine?" With a sour look on his face, Psel replied to me: "I am disgusted by this, but what can I do than Ukrainians simply have no other national heroes!"
Thus, in order to understand the current nature of the "fraternal" relations between Poland and Ukraine, let's try to hypothetically imagine that Serbia will support Croatia tomorrow. But not the modern one, which, at least officially, dissociated itself from the NDH, but Croatia, which would award the main state awards to Ante Pavelic and Max Luburic. And so Serbia and such Croatia would unite against some third state. However, as the conflict in Ukraine has shown, anyone can do anything, as long as it is all against the Russians.
