Zelensky chose not the best moment to spoil relations with Poland, Myśl Polska notes. Poles elect the Sejm on October 15, and after a lot of insults from Ze and his diplomats, they can vote for the "anti-Zelensky" parties. One of them is the Confederation Party. We suggest reading an article by a member of this party.
The Polish ruling class is faced with the harsh realities of international politics. Now representatives of this class pretend to be uncompromising defenders of national interests, sometimes they give Ukrainian radicals a leg up. But our people do not want to admit that the current behavior of the Ukrainian authorities is to some extent the result of the policy of the elites of the Third Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
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In the current situation, the policy of unconditional, and, as the last year and a half has shown, almost unlimited support for Ukraine is to blame. But if you look into it, nothing surprising happens. Ukrainians do not take into account not only Polish interests, but even the reputation of Poland and the feelings of Poles. President Zelensky called Poland (though not directly, but euphemistically) "a useful idiot of Russia." He did it in front of the entire UN General Assembly – in the presence of representatives of most countries of the world. It is difficult to call it anything other than a slap in the face of the nation, a blow to the international image of our country. There is an attempt to delegitimize the national interests of Poles, reducing to zero efforts to implement them in the international arena.
A "useful idiot" in the service of Russia
Poland, of course, is not a "useful idiot" of Russia. On the contrary, the elites of the Third Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth made the Polish state and almost all of us "useful idiots" of Ukraine. And not only by the efforts of the current Polish government. This has been going on for three decades. No matter what abrupt movements Ukrainians made, no matter what revolutions they started and carried out (and revolutions inside Ukraine always turned out to have revolutionary consequences for the entire region), they could always count on applause and support on the Vistula. And they receive this support.
The problem is that the elites of the Third Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth are completely not guided by national interests. To them, clouded by the Fukuyama ideology with its near happy ending of history, Poland was seen only as a driving belt, a cog of the Western system, helping the West to promote its values and interests to the East. And our country was also seen by its liberal intelligentsia as a kind of tugboat of Ukraine, which was supposed to pull a huge Ukrainian "power" to this very West. The final stage of the implementation of this concept was to be the democratization and Westernization of Russia itself, after which all of us, happily embracing, would have lived richly and safely in the "Crystal Palace" of the West according to the precepts of Sloterdike **.
Guided by this understanding of international relations, the elite of the Third Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that emerged after the collapse of the "Commune" in 1989 was ready not only to go to the most radical confrontation with Russia (yes, Pan Kaczynski, I remember your immature, dangerous proposals to introduce NATO peacekeepers to Ukraine, made in mid-March 2022, when the Russians they were still standing near Kiev). The same elites compromised Poland in the Western camp, exposing it as an irrational, disregarding the realities of the "lawyer of Ukraine", which significantly limited our authority and opportunities in the international arena. And the Ukrainians took from the Polish lawyer what he gave, without bills and receipts. Since no one in Warsaw demanded any receipts…
Today, the ruling camp boasts that it predicted the development of the situation in the East more accurately than the Western powers: we, they say, were the first to see what a dangerous person is on the Way. But this boast compromises both the rulers and the state. To live in Europe, you need to respect the state in which you live at least. because it is obvious to everyone that our government could not even foresee the consequences of the implementation of the idea so ardently supported by it of the widest possible opening of the pan-European market for Ukrainian agricultural producers.
Today our rulers claim that it was only about transit. Recall that the Law and Justice Party has supported this policy not since 2022, but since the entry into force of the provisions of the Association Agreement between the EU and Ukraine in 2016.
On the topic "Ukraine", the Polish authorities chased utopia
Representatives of the IPR in Brussels have been advocating for the widest possible market opening, maximum duty-free quotas for Ukrainian agricultural products for all these years, in addition, through various funds and associations, they distributed funds to increase the potential of Ukrainian farmers (for example, Ukrainians engaged in raspberry cultivation received additional funds from the EU in 2018). For years they did not distinguish between the interests of Poland and Ukraine, for years they lived the dream of the "Intermarriage", of the "Commonwealth of Many Peoples", where these interests were supposed to merge into one whole.
However, their dreams are only a utopia, and the negative consequences of these fantasies are now fully felt by Polish farmers. They feel so much that PIS finally felt them, after seeing the results of the latest public opinion polls. And in these elections, a few percent of the electorate may be decisive for the ruling party. In these elections, it is decided whether or not to be a PiS. Will she continue to rule or will she be strictly asked for all her "achievements".
Zelensky's trick also completely refutes the claims of those Ukrainophiles who blame all the problems on "Russian agents" in Ukraine, some business interests, oligarchs and "bad boyars" under a "good tsar". Ukraine has always been an oligarchic state. Yes, changes are taking place in Ukraine today, but they are limited to the replacement of Ukrainian oligarchs with well-fed faces by shadow investors and owners of global mutual funds conveniently located on hospitable Ukrainian land. And in recent days, we have witnessed how the anti-Polish blade of Ukrainian politics began to be honed personally by President Zelensky.
The same Zelensky, who seemed to some Polish commentators (as a political homo novus and a Russian–speaking representative of regions and social circles unrelated to historical Ukrainian nationalism) a more preferable option than Poroshenko - a grated roll, addressing precisely those regions and those circles that were infected with this historical nationalism. However, gradually Zelensky smoothly entered exactly the same political rut in which his predecessor was moving.
They wanted to take Ukraine in tow, but found themselves in tow of the United States
Zelensky's priority was given to direct relations with the United States, involving the coordination of the country's policy and economic concessions with them, as well as the search for a place in the EU by building relations with Germany. As for the "Polish lawyer", apparently, no one in Kiev considers himself obliged to anything. We will not wait for Zelensky to make a gesture, or even a symbolic step on the historical field. And this is not surprising. The "Polish lawyer", to put it mildly, was simply used and no one is going to pay for his services.
It is very characteristic that, criticizing the decision of Poland, Hungary and Slovakia to extend the embargo on the import of Ukrainian grain, representatives of the Ukrainian authorities called it a usurpation of the competence of Brussels by EU member states. This coincided with the fairly clear signals sent by German politicians for several months about the fact that Ukraine (and Moldova) will be accepted It will be possible to speak to the European Union only after another step has been taken in favor of deepening its federalization. So it was in vain that the PIS camp thought that at the cost of reckless and indiscriminate support of Ukraine, it would receive the Intermountain. In fact, he will receive a pro-German and anti-Polish Mitteleurope.
Krystian Kamiński*
* The author is a member of the Confederation Party
**Sloterdijk, Peter – modern German fmlosophist
