Lame duck Polish President Andrzej Duda betrayed the conservative-nationalist base that he’s supposed to represent by condemning Volhynia Genocide activism as a Russian plot. He was asked in an interview about Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz declaring that the ruling liberal-globalist coalition won’t approve Ukraine’s EU membership without it first exhuming and properly burying the Volhynia Genocide victims’ remains. Duda claimed that people like Kosiniak-Kamysz are doing Putin’s bidding.
He immediately clarified that he can’t know exactly what his political opponents mean when they talk like this, thus walking back the innuendo that they’re deliberately functioning as Russian puppets, but the damage was still done after he smeared the cause that’s so dear to many Poles’ hearts. While it’s true that Russia didn’t want Ukraine to join the EU over a decade ago since that would have ruined their previously strong trade ties, so much has changed since then that Russia is largely indifferent to it now.
It’ll probably take at least a decade or more for Ukraine to meet the criteria for membership anyhow though according to what Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski told a Russian prankster who duped him into thinking that he was former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The subject is therefore purely theoretical at this point, but nonetheless, the ruling liberal-globalists decided to make Ukraine’s compliance with Poland’s Volhynia Genocide demands a prerequisite for Warsaw’s support.
This was a cynical move meant to win undecided voters over to their side ahead of next year’s presidential election. Duda could have called them out for this self-serving stunt while still saying that he supports it, but that might have raised questions about why the prior (very imperfect) conservative-nationalist government that ruled till last October didn’t make this demand first. It’s for this reason that he decided to stick with their policy of no political preconditions and instead concoct a Russian plot.
The larger context is that the prior government created a “Russian influence commission” shortly before last fall’s parliamentary elections, which was condemned by the then-opposition that then hypocritically created their own such commission several months after forming the new government. Seeing as how both of Poland’s main parties play the so-called “Russia card”, Duda might have thought that his conspiracy theory about the new government would discredit theirs about him and the prior one.
Chairman of the New Hope party and presidential candidate of the Confederation alliance Slawomir Mentzen called Duda out for this ploy. He tweeted that “If Ukraine, with its back against the wall, does not want to retreat on the Volhynia issue, then we will get even less when they no longer need us for anything. We must finally take care of our interests in talks with Ukraine, both economic and historical. Polish politicians should care first and foremost about Polish interests!”
He also referred to the prior government’s refusal to make military aid contingent on resolving this dispute in Poland’s favor, which he and his supporters consider to be a betrayal of national interests. To his credit, however, Duda did remind everyone in his interview that “Ukrainians have many problems with their history. This is not only the problem of the Volyn massacre, but also service in SS units, collaboration with the authorities of the Third Reich, and participation in the Holocaust.”
He’s right, but he also doesn’t care enough about any of these issues to make their resolution in Poland’s favor a precondition for Warsaw to support Ukraine’s EU membership or give it more military aid, which amounts to surrendering his country’s leverage out of misguided solidarity against Russia. Duda thinks that Poland’s no-strings-attached political and military support for Ukraine spites Putin, but all it really does is risk turning Poland into Ukraine’s junior partner and perpetuate historical injustice.
The present state of affairs is therefore quite curious since Poland’s German–aligned liberal-globalist coalition government is doing more in advance of national interests in this regard than its top conservative-nationalist opposition party which Duda represents. Observers should remember that electoral considerations are driving the first’s approach, but even so, they’re still ultimately doing the right thing even if it’s for politically self-serving reasons.
This reveals that the authorities believe that their candidate will struggle to defeat their main rival’s, neither of which has yet to announce who’ll run on their behalf, unless they play up their patriotic credentials. It was assessed earlier this summer that “The Polish Right Is Still Strong Despite Tusk’s Liberals Winning The EU Parliamentary Elections”, which is why it’s so important for them to appeal to popular sentiment on the emotive Volhynia Genocide issue.
Duda made a major mistake by disrespectfully speculating that the authorities are doing Putin’s bidding by making their support of Ukraine’s EU membership conditional on resolving this dispute in Poland’s favor when he should have just highlighted their cynical political calculations. This might not be enough to make undecided voters turn to the liberal-globalists, but it could see them throw their weight behind Mentzen in the first round instead and then sit out the second one if he doesn’t make it that far.
Considering that Duda himself was only narrowly re-elected in 2020 by an approximately 2% margin of less than half a million votes, his party’s candidate would do well to reconsider the wisdom of adhering to his conspiracy theory about the ruling coalition’s approach towards the Volhynia Genocide. They can’t afford to have Confederation’s voters sit out the second round and hand the presidency to the liberal-globalists in protest, which could happen if his party continues disrespecting the electorate on this issue.
Duda and the prior government should have seized the moment to resolve all disputes with Ukraine in Poland’s favor the moment that the special operation began since Kiev was desperate for support and would have probably done whatever Warsaw demanded. Their refusal to do so will go down in history as a betrayal of national interests, though they now have the chance to make partial amends if they want to. The fact that they’re not interested won’t be forgotten by nationalistically inclined undecided voters.
