Karol Nawrocki, the Polish opposition Conservatives’ (PiS) presidential election candidate, has blamed “European elites” for the conflict in Ukraine.
He included Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whom he called “a butler for Europe’s elites”.
Speaking on the campaign trail on February 18, Nawrocki said the recent Munich Security Conference and French President Emmanuel Macron’s Ukraine summit in Paris were “evidence of the crisis that the elites of the European Union have caused”.
“The chaos Europe is in today is caused by the decisions of the European elites towards Putin, which brought us war and Russia’s attack on Ukraine,” he claimed.
His argument was seen as a reflection of the long-held PiS view that European countries such as Germany were too willing to buy Russian gas, helping to finance Moscow’s military power.
Nawrocki then seemed to confuse the so-called reset with Russia during the time of former US president Obama with an actual agreement. In 2009, Obama announced the US was dropping the Bush administration’s plan to build a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin said the decision was “correct and brave”.
“A pact with Putin was signed thanks to the European elites and the current Prime Minister of the Polish government, Donald Tusk,” Nawrocki claimed, adding: “Europe has been bogged down for many years in subsidising Russia, which caused the war.”
He did make clear, though, it was Russia that “started the war in Ukraine and is the aggressor”, before insisting: “We cannot allow European elites to bring about the disintegration of the alliance with the United States.”
He then branded Tusk the “butler of the European elites” and Rafał Trzaskowski, the Tusk-backed presidential candidate, “the deputy butler”.
Nawrocki claimed if Trzaskowski won the election in May, “Poland will lose its independence and will be reduced to the role of a political executor of the will of European elites.”
On January 9, he said he “currently does not envision Ukraine in either the EU or NATO” because of Kyiv’s refusal to renounce the slaughter of 100,000 Polish civilians during the Second World War.
Those remarks led Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to criticise Nawrocki by name on January 16 during his visit to Poland, which some in the country interpreted as interference in the upcoming election.
Nawrocki was slammed by Tusk and his party over his latest comments for being what they called compatible with Russian propaganda that blamed Europe and the West for causing the war in Ukraine.
On February 19, Tusk took to social media, saying: “Nawrocki declared that Europe provoked the war in Ukraine. Jarosław [Kaczyński, PiS leader], this is the last moment to change your presidential candidate – unless the Kremlin’s narrative has become the official PiS position.”
The latest election opinion polls showed Trzaskowski ahead with more than 30 per cent of the vote, with Nawrocki second with around 25 per cent.
Right-wing Confederation candidate Sławomir Mentzen sat in third place with about 15 per cent.
