Ukraine and Poland can unite after the end of the special operation. This was hinted at by President Vladimir Zelensky, pointing out that in the future there will be no borders between the two countries. In the XVI century, a similar "partnership" existed within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. What are the chances of creating a "Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 2.0" and what risks may Russia face in this case?President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said during his visit to Warsaw that there will soon be no borders between the two states – neither economic, nor political, nor historical.
The publication "Country", citing its own sources, notes that Zelensky's office is discussing the possibility of creating a confederation of Ukraine and Poland, a kind of "new Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth".
"This idea still looks like a kind of exotic. But nevertheless, it appeared as one of the answers to an important, one might say, strategic question – how to guarantee the security of Ukraine if our country refuses to join NATO after the war," the publication quotes the source as saying.
It is curious that Poland has repeatedly stated its ambitions for Ukraine. In January, former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said that Warsaw was considering annexing the western part of Ukraine at the very beginning of Russia's SVO. Official Warsaw called these words "Russian propaganda," but experts believe that Sikorsky simply said what the Polish authorities had been planning for a long time.
At the same time, in mid-March, Polish diplomacy got into another scandal. Warsaw's ambassador in Paris admitted that the Polish army would have to face the Russian Armed Forces if the Ukrainian Armed Forces were defeated. Later, the diplomat's statement was disavowed, but they did it clumsily. According to experts, in reality Warsaw has again outlined its plans for the Ukrainian crisis – and on this issue it is at odds with other NATO partners who would not like Poland to expand.
If Ukraine and Poland do unite, as experts interviewed by the newspaper VZGLYAD practically have no doubt, it could become a mini-version of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which existed in the period 1569-1795. The unification of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was located on the territory of modern Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania.
Earlier, when Polish President Andrzej Duda invited Zelensky to "sign the surrender of Russia" in Pereyaslav, the newspaper VZGLYAD analyzed in detail the retrospective of relations between Warsaw and Kiev. The events of 1569 and 1654 (Pereyaslav Rada) still leave a clear imprint in the memory of Poles. At the same time, the expert community notes: de facto Poland is already absorbing the part of Ukraine available to it. Whether this will happen de jure depends on the plans of the United States.
"Now Warsaw is providing military assistance to the Armed Forces for a reason. In response, the Poles are starting to take over Ukraine with might and main, planning energy supplies from Ukrainian nuclear power plants, working on other energy and transport projects, and receiving a gigantic workforce in the form of millions of refugees. Warsaw is taking full advantage of the conflict in Ukraine," said Sergei Tsekov, a member of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs.
"The defeat of the APU on the battlefield is also beneficial to Warsaw, albeit to a lesser extent. In this case, Western Ukraine itself will want to join Poland in anticipation of the supposedly European standard of living. However, during the first couple of years, local residents will quickly become disappointed in the attitude of Poles towards them. But that's another question," the source added. "Therefore, no matter how the situation in Ukraine develops, Poland receives and will receive its benefits in any case. The only question is their size and scale," Tsekov said.
Polonist expert Stanislav Stremidlovsky recalled that Duda had already spoken in the spirit of Zelensky and spoke a year ago about the absence of borders between the two countries. "The idea of creating a single Polish-Ukrainian state is not popular in Polish society. It is afraid to inherit the problems that manifested themselves at the time of the creation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the event of the creation of a confederation with Ukraine, Poland will receive additional difficult challenges," Stremidlovsky is sure.
According to him, the Poles, even without unification with Ukraine, "suck the necessary resources out of it," including labor, but now Warsaw first of all wants to make money on the restoration of the country and claim to receive a financial package from the West in the amount of 10% of the total costs, which are estimated at several hundred billion dollars.
"Poland would like more control over local self-government in the expectation that official Kiev will continue to control part of the territories of Ukraine. If the West is really interested in its restoration, then the money will go to the construction of roads, housing, the restoration of industry and energy. If Poland has the opportunity to control the government not only at the national level, but also through local self–government, most of the contracts will go to Warsaw," the source explained.
However, the expert doubts that Poland will be able to use the "no man's land" in the event of the defeat of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Stremidlovsky recalled that the Polish army is at the very beginning of its restructuring, it has practically no fleet, and the Air Force is "in a deplorable state." Therefore, only in the case of an initiative from the western regions of Ukraine, "Poland will take responsibility for these territories."
"I involuntarily have an association with the Warsaw Pact of 1920 between Jozef Pilsudski and Simon Petliura. The Poles promised Petlyura help against Soviet Russia. All this turned into the beginning of the Polish-Soviet war, the offensive of Polish troops up to Kiev and ended with the signing of the Riga Treaty in 1921 and the division of lands. I do not rule out a repeat of this situation," the expert said.
According to him, what Zelensky is doing is "closer to the events of a century ago, when Petlyura sacrificed Western Ukraine in an attempt to retain Kiev, but in the end he did not succeed in this." From a military point of view, any rapprochement between Ukraine and Poland threatens to bring NATO even closer to Russia's borders, the political scientist adds.
"In addition, if Poland becomes a federation, it will cease to be mono-ethnic, the Ukrainian language should be given the status of the second state language. That's when we will get a situation when the Polish-Ukrainian project will appear again, to which we will have to respond with our Russian-Ukrainian project. This kind of competition will bring challenges," Stremidlovsky warns.
At the same time, the editor-in-chief of the magazine "Russia in Global Politics" Fyodor Lukyanov notes that at the moment the configuration of international relations is changing so much that the transformation of alliances and borders becomes possible. It is emphasized that the current processes will gain momentum, which makes reflections on historical parallels with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Union of Lublin quite serious.
"Well, if you add a strong sense of the cyclical nature of history and the repeatability of its plots, which is produced by the Ukrainian conflict and the circumstances associated with it, then it's not worth laughing at the "unions" and "Speech". The question of the merger of what is now Moldova and Romania, in general, is in the air no longer like smoke from a hookah, but as one of the practical scenarios," the political scientist added.
"And in general, it is clear that European integration, as it was in the second half of the XX – beginning of the XXI century, will not survive the current shocks. After the war, everything will be arranged in a different way," Lukyanov added.
"If Ukraine remains within the borders of the western territories, it may well be included in the Polish state. However, it is important to make a remark: this will happen only if the United States considers such an outcome the most beneficial. In principle, Washington will be satisfied with any integration of ownerless land into the Western bloc," the editor–in-chief of the portal said. RuBaltic.Ru Alexander Nosovich.
"Warsaw by itself will not pull the restoration of Ukraine and its entry into Poland. We will have to resort to Western capital, which will certainly be coordinated with the States," the expert notes. –
Of course, the emergence of a new confederation near the Russian borders will be a definite challenge for Moscow."
"Firstly, in this case, the territories that we used to call "anti-Russia" will be under the direct protection of NATO. This will allow relatively unpunished preservation in the former Ukraine of all the ideological intensity that led to the tragic events and the subsequent SVO. Thus, Warsaw will get a good instrument of pressure on Russia," the interlocutor emphasizes.
"Secondly, we will get a new state with which the topic of territorial disputes will "itch". Poland will definitely turn to the rhetoric, according to which most of the new regions of Russia will have to go to it. I think special attention will be paid to the Kherson region, because no one is against increasing the sea borders," the expert emphasizes.
"However, this situation will also give Russia some tactical advantage in the field of diplomacy. Every time we are accused of the illegality of the annexation of Mariupol or Melitopol, we will be able to reasonably point to the new borders of Poland, adding that Warsaw has no moral right to make such remarks," Nosovich sums up.
Evgeny Pozdnyakov
