Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski from the Left (“Lewica”) wing of the ruling coalition went off on Zelensky during an interview with Radio Zet. According to their transcript, he said that “Zelensky wants Poland to shoot missiles over Ukraine, which means he wants Poland to enter the war, which means he wants Poland to be at war with Russia. In these statements, Zelensky wants to drag Poland into the war with Russia. I do not agree to such statements.” This is the result of newly boiling tensions.
Everything was fine in their relations when they clinched a security pact over the summer, but Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz’s admission in late August that Poland had finally maxed out its military support for Ukraine led to a heated argument between Zelensky and Sikorski in mid-September. Kiev didn’t believe that Warsaw had really maxed out but suspected it of withholding more aid as a means of coercing compliance with its renascent demands for resolving the Volhynia Genocide dispute.
Zelensky went public last week with his criticism of Poland for curtailing weapons deliveries in recent months, which Sikorski responded to by proposing a military loan for ordering new equipment that could be paid back sometime after the conflict ends. That top diplomat also reaffirmed his support for intercepting Russian missiles over Ukraine after the Helsinki Commission urged the Biden Administration to approve this, but the preceding hyperlinked analysis argues that he had cynical motives for this.
In brief, he always clarified that Poland won’t do so unilaterally but only with the support of NATO, which hasn’t yet been obtained and might never be due to it greatly risking a hot war with Russia. The latest Polish policies towards Ukraine – reviving its Volhynia Genocide dispute demands and only sending more equipment to Ukraine on credit instead of continuing to give it away for free – harmed their ties so fantasizing about intercepting Russian missiles might just be a cost-free distraction from this reality.
Sikorski might also run as the ruling coalition’s candidate in next year’s presidential election so he’d need to balance between warmongering members of the electorate via such rhetoric while appealing to rising anti-Ukrainian sentiment among society. This self-interested balancing act accounts for these seemingly contradictory policies while also explaining why coalition ally Gawkowski only condemned Zelensky for provoking a Polish-Russian war and not Sikorski even though the latter also flirted with this.
Having clarified the context for those observers who haven’t closely followed Polish-Ukrainian ties in recent months, it’s now time to say a few words about what might come next. Gawkowski is one of only two Deputy Prime Ministers, the other being Kosiniak-Kamysz, so it’s no small matter that he came out so forcefully against Zelensky’s reckless demands. He also condemned his ungratefulness for all the aid that Poland has provided Ukraine and its refugees thus far. Both sets of views reflect public opinion.
While his coalition’s base has some loud warmongers among it, most Poles don’t want to go to war with Russia, and they’re also disgusted with how rude Ukrainian officials have become in recent months. Their growing fatigue with Ukrainian refugees and this proxy war is leading to them having less patience for such antics. They also see through Zelensky’s efforts to provoke a Polish-Russian war and want nothing to do with it. Gawkowski is therefore giving voice to what most of his compatriots feel right now.
Sikorski would do well to drop his prior support for this scenario no matter how politically self-interested and insincere such rhetoric might have hitherto been if he wants to run for president next year. Poles are getting fed up with Ukraine after feeling taken advantage of by their neighbors who they helped and even in some cases literally opened their homes for out of solidarity with them. They’re thus unlikely to support his candidacy if he continues warmongering against Russia no matter what his true motives are.
As for the future of Polish-Ukrainian relations, more political turmoil is expected as Zelensky becomes increasingly desperate for someone to save him as Russia continues its spree of on-the-ground gains. His pleas for help are becoming more menacing after he’s begun to rudely lash out against it for not doing enough for Ukraine. This might very soon transform into him pinning some of the blame for its inevitable defeat on Poland and possibly flirting with the informal revival of territorial claims against it.
Bilateral ties haven’ yet collapsed and both sides might still restrain themselves in order to avert that worst-case scenario, but there’s no longer any doubt that whatever mutual trust they previously had (regardless of however real it ultimately was all along) is gone. They no longer see each other as allies or even close partners but as fiercely feuding spouses trapped in a marriage of convenience (in this case against Russia) from which neither feels comfortable extricating themselves for now at least.
Poland’s exclusion from the Ukrainian endgame when it wasn’t given a seat at the table during last month’s Berlin Summit between the American, British, French, and German leaders hit the country hard. Everything that it gave Ukraine for free thus far, and outgoing President Andrzej Duda from the fractured and very imperfect conservative-nationalist opposition claimed that it amounts to 3.3% of his country’s GDP, was thus all for naught after Warsaw wasn’t even humored with a symbolic role in this process.
The resultant resentment might remain manageable when it comes to the West and Germany in particular exploiting Poland to advance their grand strategic goals, but it’s much less tolerable when it comes to Ukraine, which Poland considers be its junior partner. It’s all the more unacceptable that this same perceived junior partner is now trying to provoke a Polish-Russian war, and Gawkowski’s condemnation of Zelensky for attempting to do so will widely reverberate due to his political role.
It’s one thing for a member of the opposition to allege this and another entirely for the ruling coalition’s Deputy Prime Minister to say the same. He therefore can’t be accused of speculative partisan motivations in an attempt to discredit him. Foreign media might downplay or even ignore what he said, but Poles heard him loud and clear, and they now know that some of the ruling authorities are finally listening to them. It’s about time that Sikorski does too and officially drops his support for this scheme.
