What Poland did by taking-in the Ukrainian refugees immediately following Russia's invasion was one of the great humanitarian stories of the century. And they did it despite covid and hostility from Brussels and the risk of raising their profile on the Russian's radar.
May 8, 2022I'm pretty sure he's speaking metaphorically.
At least I think he's speaking metaphorically.
God, I hope he's speaking metaphorically.
The quote is via the Office of Poland's President, Andrzej Duda from his speech last week:
President's speech marking the central celebrations of the National Day of the Third of May
It's down toward the end of the oration, where he talks about getting the Commonwealth back together (kidding)....
Here are a few other posts from 2022—there are many more, we were attempting tp game-out the social and thus political, future (ironically, September 1 is an historic date in Polish history, remembered for an earlier attack):
September 1, 2022
"Poland 'Will Not Get EU Recovery Funds', Warns Top EU Parliament Politician In Latest Attack"
Back in April I mentioned:
"Poland raises stakes on Putin as Draghi goes to Washington"
For the sake of the Polish people I sure hope their leaders understand what they are doing.
Being
a stalking horse out in front of the U.S. and NATO and especially the
EU, is a very dangerous position. And in addition, they've accepted
something on the order of three million Ukrainians who crossed the
border, an extraordinary humanitarian act on a national scale, but one
that can't go on forever. So here's wishing the Poles the best....
Don't never, ever trust the Eurocrats. They are slime.
From ReMix, August 31:
Left-wing Belgian MEP Guy Verhofstadt posted on social media that Poland will not receive EU funds no matter how much it contributes to Ukraine war aid
No matter how much Poland contributes to Ukraine war aid, the country will not receive any European Union recovery funds, said Guy Verhofstadt, a Belgian politician and leader of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE Group) in the European Parliament....
November 30, 2022
U.S. Army Mad Scientist Laboratory: "The Pivotal Role of Small and Middle Powers in Conflict: Poland and the War in Ukraine"
....To date, Poland has accepted the plurality of Ukrainians fleeing the conflict in their homeland. As of 31 March 2022, more than 2.3 million out of 4 million Ukrainian refugees had fled to Poland. These numbers have exceeded even United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees analysts’ worst-case-scenario estimates. Of the millions who have fled (even including those who have not settled in Poland), the majority have passed through Polish territory before continuing onward.
Meanwhile, the lion’s share of NATO-provided military equipment flowing in the opposite direction has passed through or been provided by Poland prior to its final destination in Ukraine. Poland even expressed willingness to donate its 28 MiG-29 fighters to Ukraine’s cause.
While remarkable, Poland’s outsized role is in some sense a natural consequence of its structural connections to Ukraine. The Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures’ Formal Bilateral Influence Capacity Index shows Poland’s importance in Ukraine’s network of diplomatic, economic, and security relationships. According to our most recent data prior to the further Russian invasion, Poland had the single most influence capacity in Ukraine, outpacing even Russia, China, and the United States.....
Now, four years after the invasion, Chicago political theorist and tactician Saul Alinsky comes to mind: In politics, whatever drags on becomes a drag.
From Newsweek, May 15:
Four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Western interest in supporting the Ukrainian war effort is fading. News from the front line now rarely reaches Western headlines, and military aid, especially from the U.S., is diminishing. U.S. military help to Ukraine fell by 99 percent in 2025, compared with the annual average for 2022-2024, according to the Kiel Institute’s Ukraine Support Tracker.
Yet recent months have seen a far more dangerous threat emerge for Kyiv–and one closer to home. Poland, Ukraine’s neighbor, was previously a stalwart supporter of the fight against Russia–partly due to its historical suffering, like Ukraine, under Russian domination. But as a result of a new right-wing president, unresolved wartime tensions, an economic downturn, and Russian disinformation, Polish aid for Ukraine is rapidly waning.
It comes at a disastrous time. With Vladimir Putin’s announcement on May 9 that the war with Ukraine may be "coming to an end," war fatigue—especially by Ukraine’s neighbors—would lower their bargaining power at the negotiation table. As Poland has so far been a link between Kyiv and the West, this fraying of relations might lead to issues with future plans for defense in Ukraine, as well as its relation to the EU and NATO.
In the last few months, social and economic tensions between the two countries have already had an impact on security and solidarity. Poland’s infrastructure is vital for the supplies of military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine. The country is the route for 90 percent of military equipment for Ukraine, and is home to NATO bases and centers, as well as complexes in the east, near the border with Ukraine, and in the northern port, Gdynia.
Yet in 2024, friction over the cheap price of Ukrainian grain sent to the EU market, and the resultant stockpiling of grain in Poland, led to Polish farmers protesting around 180 locations across Poland, blocking roads and crossings into Ukraine. This had the effect of delaying the passage of some military support, including night-vision systems, pickup trucks, and drones. These tensions also prompted Russian social media accounts to spread disinformation about the protests to sow divisions between Poland and Ukraine. In June last year, IBRiS, a Polish research agency, stated that 46 percent of Poles support ending or limiting military aid to Ukraine.
At the negotiating table, the effects of these Polish-Ukrainian tensions might lead to more potential for Russian demands to be enforced, particularly over the occupation of Ukrainian land, given weakened European support would prevent Ukraine from being able to completely protect its territory. This would also have an impact on the defense capacity of NATO and the EU’s eastern flank. If tensions with Poland remain, Ukrainian dependencies on NATO and EU defense might also be more limited, potentially leading to a lack of security guarantees in order to prevent further Russian aggression.
Ukrainian hopes to join the EU and NATO would also come under pressure. In 2025, IBRiS also found that only 35 percent of Poles now felt their country should support Ukraine in its aim to join the EU—down from 85 percent in 2022.
Many cite historical tensions with Poland and Ukraine sharing a complex wartime history. In 1943, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army murdered between 50,000 and 100,000 Poles in Volhynia, now in western Ukraine, a region which had previously been part of Poland, and was at that time occupied by Germany. The massacres were likely in response to Polish repression of Ukrainians in the region in the interwar period, as well as Ukrainian nationalist efforts to form a Ukrainian state.
While Ukraine has recently allowed Poles to exhume mass graves in the region–which was historically banned by the country– tensions remain. Poland suggests Ukraine needs to first recognize the Volhynia act as a genocide before joining the EU.
Recently, Poland has also limited support for Ukrainian refugees. In 2022, the Polish government brought in waves of assistance and protection, permitting the vast number of Ukrainian refugees who fled their country in the wake of invasion and settled across the border to stay for over a year, and gain a resident permit for three years....
....MORE
We tried to capture some of the factors highlighted above in 2024's "Why many Poles are not as supportive of Ukraine’s war effort as their leaders in Warsaw".
And like the Syrians in Germany, the Ukrainians have no intention of going back home, refuge from the war was cover for economic migration. Some earlier posts on that aspect of what was going on:
"The wicked weaponization of Ukrainian refugees "
"How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Wroclaw?"
It may be as serious a demographic situation as that which faced Britain after World War I.
By 1917 - 1918 it was becoming apparent that the death toll of the war was skewing the female/male ratio of young adults. In 2007 the Daily Mail did a book review headlined "Condemned to be virgins: The two million women robbed by the war" which was of course hyperbole, those girls and young women were having sex but the point of the book being reviewed was that, for good or bad, for bettor or worse, those girls became women who had a very different set of life options open to them than the generation that preceded theirs.
And of course the same hard reality was being experienced in Germany and Russia and France and the rest of the countries that lost their young men in their hundreds of thousands and millions.
Demography is very, very hard reality....
Which means the tensions are not going to abate.
Wroclaw is a lovely old city. President Zelensky has a tough sell trying to get military-age young men to come back:
