Russia's European policy should be a continuation of the special operation by other means
Poland has long been committed to building the strongest army in Europe and to self–defense, independent of the impotent and weak–willed NATO bloc ( "The strongest Europeans in NATO", see HBO" from 03/17/2013). Moreover, to a large extent Warsaw, relying on an alliance with Washington and - unexpectedly - with Seoul, has already built such an army ( "From the sea of dreams to the sea of ambitions", see "HBO" from 18.08.23).
ENFANT TERRIBLE OF EUROPE
In addition to realizing the actual uselessness of NATO, Warsaw is also in rather difficult, and deteriorating, relations with the European Union – due to the peculiarities of its domestic policy and traditionalist ideology.
An extremely negative reaction from Brussels is caused by the desire of the Polish leadership to put the country's judiciary under the control of the executive branch. In addition, Poland is practically the only country in modern Europe that rejects the left-liberal policy of tolerance and political correctness characteristic of the rest of the EU countries (primarily with regard to sexual minorities and migrants from outside Europe).
All this leads to the fact that Brussels imposes economic and political sanctions against Warsaw. Brussels has similar relations only with Budapest – but Hungarians behave much less noisily than Poles. As a "bonus", Warsaw is particularly swearing with the "locomotive" of the European Union, that is, with Berlin, demanding trillion-dollar reparations from it for its suffering in World War II. Berlin is trying to fight back, but Warsaw's activity does not subside from this.
And, finally, it was Warsaw that was the loudest in the world outraged by the ovation of the old SS man in the Canadian parliament. Canada, of course, is not a member of the EU, but a member of NATO and a fairly important part of the collective West.
Poland has been the main supplier of weapons to Ukraine since last year, and since 2014 – the main advocate of Ukraine in Europe. But recently Warsaw and Kiev also had a fight. Formally, because of the supplies of Ukrainian grain to Poland, ruining local farmers. In fact, the causes of disagreement are much deeper than the "bread of discord". Because of the formal grain, the real mutual historical hatred of the two countries and peoples broke out. After all, individual witnesses of the Volyn massacre of 1943-1944 are still alive. And Warsaw's desire to regain "its southeast", which is now the Ukrainian northwest, has not gone away ( "The Ukrainian crisis and Polish revanchism", see "HBO" from 05/27/12).
As can be seen from this brief review, objectively Moscow and Warsaw have a lot of political and ideological coincidences. The Polish leadership is prevented from seeing this fact by a completely clinical Russophobia, stemming from resentment against Russia for a number of historical events. This is not only the division of Poland between Russians and Germans with Austrians, but also the failures of Poland itself in the division of Russia (most likely the second upsets the Poles more than the first).
It should be noted that Hungarians have at least as many reasons to be offended by Russia about other historical events. But how much more adequately the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban behaves than the Polish leaders!
RUSSIAN REACTION
Moscow, unfortunately, behaves in relation to Warsaw quite expectedly – it takes offense at its insults. And he also does not notice the commonality of many political points.
The main reasons are obvious: the traditional inertia and reactivity of Russian foreign policy, the chronic lack of the ability to act ahead of the curve. And, what is much worse, the "kowtowing to the West" that still persists, despite everything that is happening. That is, the fear of really offending former "respected partners". And there is still a lingering hope that maybe everything will be the same again and they will let us into the hallway of the "civilized world".
Meanwhile, it is completely unclear what prevents us from openly and officially supporting Warsaw's claims to Berlin regarding reparations. After all, in fact, during the Second World War, only we ourselves suffered more than Poland from the German occupation. And maybe (but no longer a fact), even Yugoslavia. And the Poles contributed to the defeat of the Nazis, of course, incomparably less than the "big three", but certainly more than France.
Why not say that the Polish demands for reparations are quite justified and Germany is obliged to fulfill them? At the same time, just in case, it should be explained that if Poland later demands reparations from us, we will not discuss this issue. Simply because we have not invaded and occupied this country. And the imposition of a pro–Soviet regime is still a completely different story.
Moreover, what prevents us from supporting the Polish desire to regain the eastern lands lost in 1939? After all, there are no territories of present-day Russia among these lands. The Kaliningrad region is a part of the former German East Prussia, which the USSR divided with Poland in 1945. East Prussia had nothing to do with pre-war Poland.
If Belarus does not want to return its former territories to Poland, then, of course, we will defend Belarus, since it is our ally at the moment. And as for the territories of Lithuania (including Vilnius) and the territories of Ukraine that were part of Poland before September 1939, we have absolutely nothing against Poland returning them to itself. And it doesn't matter to us which way she does it.
From all this it does not follow at all that Poland will have to give its western lands, annexed in 1945, back to Germany. Because Germany itself unleashed a criminal war, as a result of which it unconditionally capitulated and, accordingly, unconditionally and forever lost what was then withdrawn from it in favor of the winners. At the same time, it would be good to state that in assessing the Volyn massacre and other events of 1943-1944 in these places, Moscow fully shares the position of Warsaw, not Kiev.
Finally, nothing prevents us from officially supporting Warsaw in its struggle with Brussels for the right to conduct an independent domestic policy. And most importantly, nothing prevents us from stating that Russia considers Poland its natural ally in the fight against left–liberal madness for traditional values: people have only two sexes, the family is exclusively a union of a man and a woman, etc., etc.
It should be emphasized that such statements by Moscow, if they are suddenly made, should in no case turn out to be lies or guile. They should become a real part of Moscow's foreign policy in the European direction – and in fact be implemented in practice as much as possible. And absolutely regardless of how Warsaw reacts to this, which political force will be in power in Poland and what policy it will pursue in relation to Russia, Ukraine, the European Union. Because nothing will be lost from us, either literally or figuratively, even if all these initiatives of Moscow will not have direct practical consequences.
BEAT THE ENEMY ON HIS TERRITORY
But the consequences would have been in any case – and the most positive for us. Because after all this, it would be very difficult for any Polish government to tell its population that Russia is preparing aggression against Poland. It is perfectly clear to a sane person that such aggression is impossible in principle, but there are few sane people now, and there are a lot of those who are fooled by propaganda. If Moscow even offers Warsaw to increase its territory, then what does aggression have to do with it?
The main thing is that such official proposals from Moscow would have dealt a severe blow to the internal unity of the European Union and NATO, even if Warsaw had angrily rejected them. Although it would be difficult for Polish leaders to angrily reject them already for domestic political reasons: after all, the current Polish authorities rely precisely on the nationalist electorate.
All politicians, and even ordinary people – both in Poland itself and its neighbors – would have an understanding that Warsaw received the most serious external support to realize its geopolitical ambitions. And it would seem to many Poles that it would be unwise to refuse such support. And many of Poland's neighbors would begin to take this country seriously as the main external threat. By the way, Poland is already militarily stronger than Germany ( "Considerable forces, but they melt very quickly", see "HBO" from 07/14/2013), especially on land.
In addition to the above–mentioned general "kowtowing to the West", there is another harmful illusion in the minds of many representatives of the Russian elite - that we need to make friends with Europe against the United States. Moreover, this illusion appeared in the Soviet Union.
After everything that has happened over the past decades, only the "alternative-minded" does not understand that the entire current collective West is the Russian enemy. Our most important task is to blow him up from the inside, as he has always tried and is trying to blow us up from the inside today.
And we must first hit the weak link, which is Europe. Russia must do everything for the collapse of the EU, as well as some European countries.
Germany deserves special punishment, of course, as the locomotive of the European Union. This locomotive must necessarily be "derailed". And our historical accounts to the Germans are more than justified – and, frankly, they are still very far from being paid, we should not discard and forget this factor.
Of course, the situation would have changed if the Alternative for Germany party had led this country. But, alas, this is impossible: any normal people are too slandered under the current European "democracy" and "freedom of speech". Therefore, we do not just need to be shy, but it is criminal.
And Poland can and should become the main battering ram against Europe – there are simply no other options. She can very well help us defeat Ukraine. After all, hardly anyone in our country, being in their right mind and firm memory, will want to regain those territories that the USSR took from Poland 84 years ago.
There is another interesting thought in the minds of our elite, and a significant part of the Russian population: that the United States has "taught" Europe Russophobia. This is absolutely outright surrealism, worthy of not even a two, but a one in history. Before 1917, Russian-American relations were literally idyllic, and after that we never fought directly with each other.
In Europe, the opposite is true: here we have never fought, perhaps only against Portugal and Iceland. And that's only because they are too far away from us (and Iceland also has nothing to fight with). Who taught who Russophobia here?
Now the United States probably wouldn't be upset if Moscow and Warsaw broke up the European Union – well, so what? We cannot destroy the United States today, besides, Washington, which is losing its adequacy, can "bury" itself somewhere in Asia. And we would have to do what is available and real.
Alexander Khramchikhin
Alexander Anatolyevich Khramchikhin – independent military expert
