Polish leaders have been regulars in Ukraine since the outbreak of war. Now the Ukrainian President Zelenskyj is coming to Warsaw to say thank you for the help. But there are also controversial issues.
Meeting at the airport: Polish President Duda welcomes his Ukrainian counterpart Zelenskyj on December 22, 2022 at Rzeszow Airport in south-eastern Poland after his return from a visit to Washington
So far, President Volodymyr Zelenskyj has only stopped in Poland when he was on his way to western capitals: Washington, London, Paris or Brussels. This Wednesday he is coming – accompanied by his wife Olena – on his first official visit to Poland since the Russian attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022. And like US President Joe Biden a month and a half ago, he will also be present meet with Polish citizens at the Royal Castle in Warsaw. “Zelenskyj will thank Poland” – headlined the pro-government and opposition Polish newspapers on Tuesday in rare agreement.
Strong symbolism
“This visit will have two levels: a symbolic one and a practical one,” said Polish foreign policy expert Pawel Kowal from the opposition Citizens' Coalition in an interview with Gazeta Wyborcza. The symbolic dimension is very important. “A year has passed since the event that I call the humanitarian uprising here in Poland. It was the extraordinary country-wide relief operation for Ukraine and the Ukrainians,” said the former foreign minister. This willingness to help was extremely important and President Zelenskyj wanted to thank him for it. “We can be really proud of this because this help is historically unique.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj meets his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda in Rzeszow on December 22, 2022
In fact, Poland's aid to the neighboring country has reached an unprecedented level in the country's history. As the Kiel Institute for the World Economy announced in February this year, Poland's aid totaled 3.6 billion euros. This put Poland in fifth place among donors behind the USA (73.1 billion euros), the EU (29.9 billion euros), Great Britain (8.3 billion euros) and Germany (6.1 billion euros). . In terms of military aid, only the USA and Great Britain are ahead of Poland (2.4 billion euros).
Open arms for Ukrainians
From the first day of the Russian attack, Poland opened its state border to the Ukrainian refugees. According to the border guards, almost eleven million people with Ukrainian passports, mostly women and children, have entered the western neighboring country in the past 13 months. More than 9 million Ukrainians returned to their homeland during this period.
Emergency shelter for arriving Refugees from Ukraine in the Polish border town of Przemysl
Refugees who stayed in Poland received protection and the same social benefits as Polish citizens. Most of the refugees stayed with Polish families or with their Ukrainian acquaintances in Poland. This was an enormous challenge for Polish civil society, which it mastered with flying colors.
Political support from Warsaw
Political support for Warsaw was also particularly important for Ukraine. Three weeks after the outbreak of war, the Polish head of government Mateusz Morawiecki traveled to Kiev with his counterparts from the Czech Republic and Slovakia. And President Andrzej Duda, with the heads of state of the Baltic states, visited liberated Ukrainian cities in April 2022, including Bucha, the place where the first Russian war crimes were documented. Altogether Duda visited the neighboring country four times in the first year of the war.
Polish President Duda visits Kiev in August 2022< /p>
Warsaw also sent its Soviet-made T-72 tanks to Ukraine and put pressure on Berlin and other Western capitals to also speed up supplying arms to the beleaguered country. A similar role was played by Poland in the decision to send MIG-29 attack aircraft. The Jasionka airport near Rzeszow in south-eastern Poland became the central hub for arms transport to Ukraine.
Although pro-Ukrainian sentiment in Poland persists and criticism of Poland's commitment to Ukraine remains a domain of the extreme right, Polish-Ukrainian relations are not entirely free of problems that could escalate.
Grain from Ukraine annoys Polish farmers
The latest example that has been causing a lot of excitement for the past few weeks is Ukrainian grain. Because of the Russian blockade of Ukrainian Black Sea ports, grain deliveries, especially wheat and corn, should be exported to the world via Poland's Baltic Sea ports. However, some of the transports ended up in the Polish camps, which led to a dramatic fall in prices.
The Polish government only reacted when angry farmers paralyzed traffic with road blockades. An agreement was signed with the farmers' associations a few days ago, but the protests continue. On Tuesday (April 4th, 2023) Prime Minister Morawiecki announced that he would speak to Selenskyj about the transit of Ukrainian foodstuffs.
Ukraine: topic in the election campaign?
About a million Ukrainians have found a new home in Poland. Many of them work or study. Even before the war broke out, there were hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian workers in Poland. “Your presence could become an issue in the election campaign, especially if the economic situation in Poland continues to deteriorate,” the Rzeczpospolita newspaper warns. In the nationalist right-wing press it is said again and again: “This is not our war.”
According to foreign policy expert Kowal, the time is ripe for a Polish-Ukrainian treaty based on the Elysee Treaty between Germany and France of 1963. It is about a fixed structure for cooperation between the two governments and states and about youth exchanges. Poland should claim more than just a transit and military hub role in relation to Ukraine.
Difficult history
The difficult past hangs over both countries like the sword of Damocles. After the outbreak of war, the sensitive issues receded into the background, but they have by no means been forgotten.
In March 1943, the Ukrainian nationalists attacked Volhynia – an area that belonged to the Polish state until 1939, but was controlled by the Ukrainians claimed – the Polish families living there with weapons. The goal was their expulsion or annihilation in order to create favorable conditions for the Ukrainian national state after the retreat of the Wehrmacht.
Commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Volhynia massacre on July 11, 2013 in Warsaw
At According to Polish figures, 100,000 Poles died in the bloody battles, which are considered “ethnic cleansing” in Poland. There were 20,000 casualties on the Ukrainian side in the Polish retaliatory actions. After the end of the Second World War and the forced displacement of the borders by the Soviet Union, the conflict continued in Bieszczady in south-eastern Poland.
Because the armed forces of communist Poland could not deal with the Ukrainian insurgents, all Ukrainian families were forcibly expelled to northern and western Poland in the spring of 1947 during the so-called “Operation Vistula”. To prevent their return, their villages and churches were destroyed. To this day, the nationalist Ukrainian leader Stepan Bandera is a bone of contention between the neighbors. Many Ukrainians consider him a hero who fought for free Ukraine. In Poland, on the other hand, he is held responsible for crimes against the Polish population.
“I believe that Zelenskyy will show a gesture in this matter,” says opposition politician Pawel Kowal. However, the historian considers it a mistake to reduce Polish-Ukrainian relations to history. Bandera, in his opinion, is no longer a point of reference for Ukrainians. “The real heroes today are the defenders of Mariupol or Bakhmut,” judges Kowal.