In Ukrainian matters, Poland was long considered to be the key ally of Kiev – or even as an ambassador of this country on the international arena. The most important Polish politicians, like a mantra, emphasized that Putin could not win in Ukraine, our weapon was flowing behind the eastern border with a wide stream – and the Jesionka in Rozonów was the most important logistics hub for the army of our neighbor.
A lot has changed. In recent years, we have given Ukraine so much weapons that now we are rather focusing on shopping for our own needs. Jasionka remained a hub for Ukraine, but the Americans withdrew from her. Polish politicians talk much less often about Ukrainian issues – and they certainly refrain from commenting on peace conversations. At the negotiating table, there are primarily Americans and Russians. Sometimes, of course, the Ukrainians themselves take part in the conversations, but the voice of the British or the French take part. But not Poles.
A lot has changed for just a few months. In October last year, Keir Starmer, Joe Biden, Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron met in Berlin. The main topic was, of course, Ukraine. There was no representative of Poland at the table, but in Warsaw it aroused gigantic emotions. “We believe that during such a meeting Poland should be, given that it is one of the countries most involved in helping Ukraine on many levels, “said Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Paweł Wroński.
Conversations of leaders about Ukraine in October 2024.
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IMAGO/ Marvin IBO/ BPA/ DTS Nachrichtenagentur/ East News
The expert of the Polish Institute of International Affairs Mateusz Piotrowski admits in an interview with Business Insider Polska: Today, the fact that we are not at the table no longer arouses much emotion. And looking at Polish politicians, it's hard to have the impression that they feel uncomfortable with it. But why?
“We look more”
Mateusz Piotrowski points out that it is not that we do not count on Ukrainian matters. An example, he gives a conversation between Radosław Sikorski with his counterpart from the USA – Marco Rubio, which took place on October 23.
The expert of the Scriptures adds that diplomatic contacts with the American side about Ukraine are of course maintained – and conversations at lower levels take place quite often. However, the key reason for Polish restraint seems that simply conversations about peace do not go our way – and for Ukrainians. – It doesn't look good, so we just look at this process more on our part – explains the expert of the Scriptures.
As you can hear unofficially from Polish politicians, our administration is simply afraid to get into the team of Donald Trump. “He's definitely not pro -Ukrainian, we all know.” But he is not anti -Polish either. And very, but we don't really want it to change – an unofficially member of the ruling coalition tells us. You can hear something else: Ukrainian issues are very important to Poland, but relations with the United States are even more important. Donald Trump has an explosive character – and a criticism of his peace plan could end, for example, undermining art. 5. NATO. And maybe, for example, with the withdrawal of some US soldiers from our country.
Polish politicians prefer not to provoke Trump. And sometimes they even conquer his narrative. For example, President Duda said that Ukraine must make concessions, and “only Donald Trump can end this war.”
5 percent is it not enough?
In fact, probably all our allies from NATO emphasize the impressive pace of our armor. As for the attitude to GDP to the level of arms, we pierce in the alliance of everyone – including the USA. The trouble is that if we look at absolute numbers, it is difficult to recognize us as great military power. Our economy is much smaller than e.g. French – and it's hard to jump over.
Poland also has no access to nuclear weapons – like France or Great Britain. We are not even part of the Nuclear Sharing Nuclear Sharing atomic program, even, Germany. What does this mean? In a world where pure strength counts more and more, we just don't have too many cards that we could play in Ukrainian conversations.
Of course, our card does not have to be nuclear weapons. Several countries – including France and Great Britain – they talk about readiness to send peace forces to Ukraine. Poland excludes it, which naturally weakens its position in negotiations. Unofficially, you can hear that at this moment even numerous in this matter is hard to imagine. And here we come to the next reason, which we do not count in a game for Ukraine. This reason is the upcoming presidential election.
The rest of the article is under video material
Toxic topic in the election campaign
Subsequent studies show that the attitude of Poles to Ukrainians is increasingly distanced. Most Poles also do not want to see Polish troops in this country. So KO and Rafał Trzaskowski's staff, so he does not even want to talk about such ideas – fearing that this could completely change the dynamics of the presidential campaign.
There is another page of this medal. Our unofficial conversations show that the government and staff of Rafał Trzaskowski have been very afraid in recent months of sudden decisions of Donald Trump's administration. At some point, the reduction of US troops in Poland was afraid, but the American president could influence Polish elections in a different way – for example, in some way supporting the PiS candidate or the confederation. Therefore, the policy of the American president by the Polish government has this context.
The question remains whether in any scenario Donald Trump's administration could take into account the Polish voice on Ukraine. Mateusz Piotrowski believes that he is somewhat audible in the US – although of course it does not matter.
But it is possible that our quiet treatments have some results. Donald Trump's recent peace proposals are hardly beneficial to Ukraine. The country would have to reconcile with the loss of Crimea or numerous other territories. But for Moscow it is not a dream scenario at all. Ukraine according to this project could become part of the EU, there is no question of disarming its army – what Russia would like. In addition, Trump wants Ukraine to get a small part of the Kharkiv region back from Russia. Given the anti -Ukrainian attitude of the US president, these are not such bad conditions. Who knows if they would be much worse were it not for Polish lobbying for Kiev. Not to mention the fact that ultimately a truce may be more beneficial for Ukraine than it seems today.
“What conditions for a possible truce of Ukraine-Russia could really be, deviates from what we read in the media. This was explained by the Secretary of State of the USA – said the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski on TVN24
Author: Mateusz Madejski, Business Insider Polska journalist
