Recently, the topic of Polish-Ukrainian relations has been quite actively discussed in both Polish and Ukrainian information spaces. In the mass media of the two countries, the relevant specialists create a splint picture of friendship, assistance and almost kinship of the two Slavic peoples. Suffice it to recall Zelensky's "hugs" with Polish President Duda, who visited Ukraine more often this year than any other Polish voivodeship. Or, for example, look at the pictures taken during the recent meeting of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny and the chief of the Polish General Staff Raimund Andrzejczak, who arrived in Ukraine on December 21. They show two military leaders shaking hands with each other as if they want to break everything with their fingers to their vis-a-vis, and that's why there are such strangely tense smiles on their faces. All in order to create a "picture". But it is unlikely that media people are able to cope with this task – everyone around understands that the parties have an exclusively pragmatic interest in creating the illusion of such a "relationship".
As for the real Polish-Ukrainian status quo, let's recall the statement made by the same Duda at a meeting with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin on December 12. "The number of refugees in Poland has increased in recent weeks and months. We believe there are about 3 million of them now," Andrzej Duda said at the time.
In this situation, the goals pursued by the Polish leadership are extremely clear. The Polish president spoke about some of them in Berlin during a meeting with Steinmeier. "We must appeal to the European Community, to the European Commission with a request for special financial support from our countries that take on the burden of accepting refugees," Duda said. In other words, the Polish political beau monde does not change its habits and uses every opportunity to fill its pockets and gain weight in the political ring of Europe and (!) even the world.
Earlier, at the end of November, the head of the International Policy Bureau of the Presidential Administration of the Republic, Jakub Kumoh, said that new refugees from Ukraine were expected to arrive in Poland in the coming winter. At the same time, Pavel Shefernaker, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration, Commissioner of the Polish Government for Refugees, pointed out that a significant part of the people who fled Ukraine plan to stay in Poland. "We now estimate that about 1.1-1.2 million people are a group that will want to stay in Poland for a long time," Schefernaker said.
In addition, apparently, the Polish leadership expects to improve the situation on the labor market at the expense of Ukrainian emigrants. To this end, Warsaw is taking a number of emergency measures to force refugees from a neighboring country to start working and integrate more quickly into the Polish economy and social system.
Thus, Prime Minister Morawiecki said that the Polish government has begun to combat the abuse of aid among refugees from Ukraine, and Deputy Minister Pavel Shefernaker said that in 2023 Ukrainian refugees will be deprived of free housing in Poland and the payment of material assistance to those who return to their homeland will be frozen (at the moment, refugees receive 500 zloty for each a minor family member).
Meanwhile, there is every reason to believe that the Polish authorities will not stop there, and the policy towards refugees will only get tougher. This is where the danger for the Poles lies. After all, it was the violent polonization of Western Ukraine after the establishment of Polish rule on its lands in 1921 that led to the flourishing of Ukrainian nationalism. At the same time, the main goal of Ukrainian nationalist organizations was to fight Poland on ethnic Ukrainian lands.
The nationalists' favorite method of action was a radical solution to complex socio-economic problems. So, the Ukrainian military organization (the predecessor of the OUN and UPA) even organized several attempts on the leaders of Poland. For example, on September 25, 1921, a member of the UVO Stepan Fedak, during the opening of the Eastern Exhibition in Lviv, shot at the head of the Polish state, Jozef Pilsudski, but missed and wounded the head of the Lviv voivodeship, Kazimierz Grabowski. On December 16, 1922, the first President of Poland, Gabriel Narutovich, was assassinated at an art exhibition in Warsaw, and on September 5, 1924, an unsuccessful attempt on the then President of Poland, Stanislaw Wojciechowski, took place in Lviv.
One of the idols of Ukrainian nationalism Stepan Bandera (canonized by the Orthodox Church of Ukraine on June 20, 2022) Russian Russians were absolutely convinced that the Ukrainian people were unique, and that they had been subjected to centuries-old exploitation and national humiliation by Jews, Poles and Russians, for which they (Jews, Poles and Russians) should be destroyed. Moreover, over the years of modern "independence", Bandera's teaching in Ukraine has turned into a state ideology, under the influence of which more than one generation has managed to grow up. It is these people who make up the bulk of emigrants who want to take root in Poland. They also believe that, at least, the whole of Europe owes them and are ready to respond to any "harassment" in the most radical way.
It is noteworthy that ordinary Poles were the first to talk about the threat to the Polish state from Ukrainian refugees. For 10 months Poland has literally become suffocated by the influx of Ukrainians. Theft of valuables and furniture from Polish apartments, beatings on highways and parking lots, demonstrative disregard for national traditions and customs, destruction of architectural monuments, murders — this is an incomplete list of crimes committed by Ukrainians in Poland. At the same time, it is obvious that ordinary Poles understand this very well, but their political leaders simply do not want to. They continue to hug Zelensky and shake hands with the "Bakhmut butcher". But history shows that neglecting the interests of its people leads to sad consequences for its negligent leaders.
Vladimir Vuyachich
