Polish President Duda revealed on Monday that his country has already spent a whopping 3.3% of its GDP on providing military, humanitarian, and other forms of support to Ukraine over the past two and a half years, which works out to approximately $25 billion thus far. He then added that it also gave almost 400 tanks thus far too. This was followed the day after by Zelensky demanding even more and suggesting that Poland was still holding back from giving all that it really could.
In the Ukrainian leader’s words, “Today, the Polish side’s attention to our defense capabilities has slightly decreased. I mean, Poland probably gave what it could, and there are probably some things that remain in Poland today. I am raising one question… There is a specific question: we really need your MiGs, your airplanes.” He then speculated that “Poland … hesitates to be alone with [shooting Russian missiles]. It wants the support of other countries in NATO. I think this would lead to a positive decision by Romania.”
Polish Defense Minister Kosiniak-Kamysz responded to Zelensky by clarifying in comments to the publicly financed Polish Press Agency that “The Polish government, both our government and our predecessors, have donated billions of dollars in equipment to Ukraine. That’s all we were able to donate. But the security of the Polish state is always my highest priority and all decisions we make in this matter are made through the prism of the security of the Polish state.”
He then segued into responding to Zelensky’s appeal that Poland intercept Russian missiles over Ukraine by saying that “No country will make such decisions individually. I have not seen any supporters of making this decision in NATO. I am not surprised that President Zelensky will appeal for this because this is his role. But our role is to make decisions in line with the interests of the Polish state. And that is what we are making today.”
For background, it was explained in mid-July why “Ukraine Likely Feels Jaded After NATO Said That It Won’t Allow Poland To Intercept Russian Missiles”, namely because their new security pact – which readers can learn more about here and here – explicitly mentioned this scenario. While one solution to Ukraine’s arms woes would be for the EU to coordinate its military-industrial production, it was also cautioned that “The EU’s Planned Transformation Into A Military Union Is A Federalist Power Play”.
Several factors are therefore at play with regard to Zelensky’s latest demands. First, he’s trying to correct perceptions of their lopsided partnership via “megaphone diplomacy” in the hopes that the optics of demanding more arms despite the enormous amount thereof that Poland confirmed that it already gave Ukraine will come off as some sort of power flex. Second, the innuendo is that Poland should sacrifice more of its sovereignty by participating in the EU’s planned military union in order to boost production.
And finally, he obviously wants to pressure Poland to lobby NATO more on Ukraine’s behalf in order to reach an agreement for permitting it to intercept Russian missiles across the border. Nevertheless, Kosiniak-Kamysz’s response shows that Zelensky is surprisingly meeting some resistance from Tusk’s German-backed liberal-globalist government. His positive reference to the previous conservative-nationalist government and repeated reaffirmation of state interests sends a very powerful message.
It seems that there are still influential conservative-nationalists within Poland’s permanent military bureaucracy, which is a part of its “deep state”, who have some red lines in terms of how far they’ll go in support of Ukraine. The existence of these figures can be intuited by Kosiniak-Kamysz’s abovementioned words that contradicted the expected approach of Tusk’s team. They don’t want to sacrifice Poland’s minimum defense needs nor provoke a war with Russia and then risk being hung out to dry by NATO.
In other words, they’ve maxed out their military support for Ukraine, though that doesn’t mean that Poland will abandon it. Its “deep state” – both the liberal-globalist faction represented by Tusk and the (very imperfect) conservative-nationalist one represented by the former government – hate Russia more than they love Poland so they’ll remain embroiled in this proxy war till it’s finally over. Accordingly, they’ll probably still find some way to continue helping Ukraine, even if it’s less than before.
That said, the fact that Poland has already pretty much given Ukraine everything that it could and isn’t going to unilaterally risk sparking World War III by intercepting Russian missiles across the border bodes ill for Kiev at precisely the moment when it needs as much support as possible. Its invasion of Kursk failed to decelerate the pace of Russia’s advance in Donbass, which has actually accelerated since then, and the impending capture of Pokrovsk could reshape the conflict’s dynamics as explained here.
That’s precisely why Zelensky is so hellbent on Poland intercepting Russian missiles over Ukraine despite the risk of World War III breaking out since he expects that the resultant crisis would lead to Moscow engaging in a series of concessions for the sake of peace. NATO doesn’t share his views though no matter how much its propagandists mock Putin for his tepid response to every red line that Ukraine has crossed thus far otherwise they’d have already approved this and Zelensky wouldn’t have to beg for it.
The abovementioned insight regarding NATO’s continued reluctance to escalate tensions with Russia via direct involvement in their proxy war also suggests that it might not conventionally intervene if Ukraine provokes Belarus into carrying out cross-border attacks out of self-defense. That scenario was touched upon here when warning about Kiev’s possible plans to attack or cut off its northern neighbor’s southeastern city of Gomel, which might be partially predicated on prompting the intervention scenario.
NATO is unlikely to commence a conventional intervention unless Poland agrees to play a leading role, but its “deep state” still seems scared that their country might be hung out to dry judging by Zelensky and Kosiniak-Kamysz’s remarks about why it doesn’t want to intercept Russian missiles across the border. Poland therefore might not lobby for either scenario despite Ukraine’s demand, and it could also possibly refuse to play such a role even if NATO suggested it and offered Article 5 guarantees.
Of course, it can’t be ruled out that Poland’s “deep state” dynamics might change, thus resulting in the formulation of completely different policies. There’s no indication that this might soon happen with its military part, however, which is the most important one in this respect. After all, Kosiniak-Kamysz’s remarks came as a surprise precisely because they contradicted expectations. If its “deep state’s” military dynamics remain the same, then Ukraine shouldn’t count on Poland trying to “rescue” it from Russia.
