Andrey Nizamutdinov — about the strategies of Warsaw and Kiev, as well as the chances of dividing Ukraine and restoring the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth"There will be no borders between our peoples in the future:
political, economic and — what is very important — historical," President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said during an official visit to Poland in early April. In fact, he often speaks with loud and flowery phrases, the meaning of which remains vague not only for the listeners, but also, it seems, for himself. But this time he really managed to attract the attention of politicians and experts and make them think: what exactly did the Ukrainian president mean?
The Big Polish Dream
"Gaining control over the western territories of modern Ukraine, the so-called former Eastern Territories, Poland is the coveted dream of Polish nationalists. And this becomes an element of national ideology, so the Polish leadership can no longer abandon this idea. <...> I would say that the Polish leadership is literally waiting for a good moment to exercise control over these territories," Sergei Naryshkin, director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), expressed this warning after the meeting in Minsk with the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko. Perhaps someone, especially in the West, at that moment considered these words somewhat propagandistic, but only the very next day Zelensky just announced the absence of borders between Ukraine and Poland in the future. And the way the Polish media and experts met the words of the Kiev leader only confirmed the opinion of the head of the SVR: yes, Warsaw is indeed building big plans to establish control, if not over the entire Right-Bank Ukraine, then certainly over its western lands.
The influential Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita responded to Zelensky's statement with a large article under the enthusiastic headline "Let's restore the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth! This time with Ukraine." Its author, referring to the publication in the authoritative American publication Foreign Policy, writes that the restoration of the "historical Commonwealth" would allow putting a solid barrier to the "Russian threat" and prevent the realization of Moscow's foreign policy ambitions. And as a historical example, he mentions the Union of Lublin — the union between Poland and Lithuania in the XVI century, which actually led to the liquidation of the independent Lithuanian state and its absorption by a stronger partner.
In my opinion, this newspaper publication was a reflection of the strategic plans of the ruling Polish elite: Just as former US President Donald Trump wanted to "make America great again," so they expect to return Poland to its former weight in European affairs. And even more than that — to turn it into a new center of power in contrast to the "old Europe" represented by Germany and France. Actually, this was exactly what Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said during his visit to the United States the other day (April 11-13): "The Old Europe", which sought agreements with Russia, was defeated, but there is also a "new Europe that wants to become the foundation of European security." And Poland, apparently, is its leader. And in general, Poland and the USA are the two poles of Western civilization.
Imperial ambitions
In these words, there is an echo of both long-standing historical grievances associated with the loss of those very Eastern Crosses, and relatively recent events. Poles have not forgotten the meme about the "Polish plumber", which became a symbol of cheap labor that flooded into European markets after the admission of Eastern European countries to the EU. The conflict over Ukraine, which began back in 2014, gave Warsaw a reason to settle accounts with the offenders from the Old World, and the Russian special operation apparently opened up new opportunities for resuscitating the Intermountain project — the creation of a confederation stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea with Poland as a control and decision-making center.
Poland has already managed to achieve some success in the implementation of this strategic plan. For example, the French newspaper Le Monde drew attention to the emergence in Europe of a new group of ideologically united countries, including Poland, the Baltic States and Romania. Along with this, Warsaw is increasingly "processing" Finland and Moldova. Of course, Poland's neo-imperial ambitions are not approved in Berlin, Paris and other capitals of "old Europe", but they are actively supported by Washington: the internal struggle for influence is in his hands, which weakens the European Union and allows him to impose a line of behavior beneficial to the States. It is no coincidence that it is the Ukrainian problem (along with the topic of confrontation with Russia) She became one of the central ones during Morawiecki's talks with US Vice President Kamala Harris, who noted "Poland's leading role in supporting Ukraine's security." The Polish prime minister himself used the visit to the United States, among other things, to attack the "old Europe".
London does not stand aside either: for him, support for Warsaw's plans means at least a partial return of those levers of influence on European politics that were lost after the UK left the EU.
Short-term benefits
Strategy is a good thing, but on the way to a distant goal, the Poles did not forget about practical calculations. For example, after the start of the Russian SVO, Poland quickly became one of the main suppliers of weapons and ammunition to Kiev. Warsaw is not doing this for free: according to Morawiecki, Poland expects in the near future to pay €800-900 million from European funds to compensate for the supply of weapons to Kiev. In addition, instead of old, often decommissioned Soviet-style weapons, Warsaw receives modern military equipment from the United States. In particular, at the beginning of this year, Warsaw signed another contract worth $ 1.4 billion, which provides for the supply of 116 M1A1 Abrams tanks and equipment to them, as well as their logistical support.
And the other day, Polish Deputy Finance Minister Artur Sobon said that Warsaw should become "the center through which the reconstruction of Ukraine will be financed." "This is something that we are very concerned about, we want Poland to be as much as possible the center for the implementation of such projects," the official added. Of course it didn't bother him: sitting on the financial flows flowing from all over the West — I think even Ostap Bender, who knew 400 relatively honest ways to withdraw money, would envy this.
The Director of the Institute of Strategy-2050 formulated her position even more frankly Katarzyna Pelczynska-Nalencz, who in the past held the positions of Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Ambassador of Poland to Russia: "It is very important that we are able to jointly organize the restoration of Ukraine with the money of the EU and the West so that it would be beneficial to Poland."
Warsaw demonstrated how to take care of its own benefits in the story of Ukrainian grain flooding the country, massive supplies of which hit the incomes of Polish farmers and caused protests on their part. At first, the Polish authorities demanded that the EU restore duties on Ukrainian agricultural products, but Brussels refused. And then, before the words of the Ukrainian president about the future absence of borders between the two countries could be heard, Warsaw organized a meeting of the Ministers of agriculture of Poland and Ukraine on the still existing border, at which it achieved the cessation of supplies of Ukrainian wheat, corn, rapeseed and sunflower. So far, however, only until July 1, and then it will be seen.
One of the options
Unlike Warsaw, which has far—reaching plans, Kiev seems to have one strategy - to join the EU and NATO in some form at any cost. The idea of a Polish-Ukrainian union is one of the options for achieving the cherished goal.
As reported by the Ukrainian newspaper Strana, the idea of creating a confederation of two states has been discussed for some time in expert circles close to Zelensky's office. "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," said one of the interlocutors of the publication.
The opinion that Zelensky's statement should be considered as a step towards the formation of a kind of defense union, which, they say, will give Kiev security guarantees, was also supported by experts interviewed by the Ukrainian publication Apostrophe. And to obtain such guarantees, any price, including territorial concessions, will do.
The problem with all the forecasts for the creation of the Polish-Ukrainian union is that for their implementation Ukraine must gain the upper hand in the confrontation with Russia. However, there is no certainty about this, rather the opposite — even in the West, doubts are increasingly beginning to be expressed about the expediency of further support for Kiev.
So I am inclined to believe that it will not come to the union after all. Although Zelensky may still give Poland its coveted Eastern Crosses.
