Polish President Karol Nawrocki said he believes Ukraine has taken his country for granted and failed to treat it as a partner.
His comments yesterday in an interview with portal Wirtualna Polska came in advance of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Warsaw due on December 19.
The talks in the Polish capital will, according to Nawrocki’s Chancellery, concern security matters, economic co-operation and “bilateral matters important for maintaining or building good-neighbourly relations” between Warsaw and Kyiv.
That will include historic matters such as the honouring and exhumation of victims of the Second World War’s Volhynia slaughter of more than 100,000 Poles by Ukrainian nationalists.
Nawrocki told Wirtualna Polska that he would be concentrating on discussing “issues that matter to the Polish people” and that he hoped Zelensky’s visit could “help restore balance” in relations between Warsaw and Kyiv.
“We have lost the element of partnership in Polish-Ukrainian relations, and I say this openly,” he said.
He vowed that as President he “will not allow Poland to be treated merely as an antechamber or corridor in matters of strategic importance”.
“We support Ukraine and will continue to do so, but we must learn to function as partners,” Nawrocki said.
According to Poland’s head of state, Zelensky has got used to a situation in which Poland’s support for it such as military and humanitarian assistance was taken for granted.
“Poland is very important for Ukraine and the Ukrainian side should understand that. Ukraine can’t be supported without Polish support,” Nawrocki said.
“I feel that President Zelensky has in the last few years gotten used to taking Poland for granted. Nothing needed to be agreed with us, no need to talk to us as we were ready and willing to give what was required.”
He added that Zelensky’s view that he could rely on Poland come what may meant the Ukrainian leader concentrated on relations with other west European chiefs rather than his Polish allies.
The opposition Conservatives (PiS)-aligned Nawrocki signalled his and his country’s displeasure at what he said was the way Poland was being marginalised in current peace talks. He blamed Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who heads the ruling centre-left coalition, for failing to project Poland’s case with European partners.
“The Prime Minister has insisted that Europe is his territory and that he has excellent relations with the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz,” he said.
“But it turns out that, and this is not good news for me and Polish people, he is not valued as highly as he thought.
“I came into office in August with the present government already being a part of the ‘coalition of the willing’ on Ukraine and with the prime minister telling me that he held strong cards in Europe,” Nawrocki said.
According to the Polish President: “Tusk is no longer an attractive partner for west European leaders,” despite the fact that he was ideologically compatible with the heads of France and Germany and with the ruling coalition in Brussels.
Asked by reporters to comment on Nawrocki’s remarks, Tusk said: “A Polish President talking Poland down is a disaster.”
Yesterday, Tusk attended a meeting of European leaders with Zelensky in Berlin, which he called “unifying”.
Poland was absent from negotiations over a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, though, which took place in Geneva and London in recent weeks.
The PM and President are already in conflict over Nawrocki’s rejection of the government’s legislative agenda and nominees for judicial and ambassadorial positions, as well as the future of the European Union.
In the immediate aftermath of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Poland provided hundreds of tanks and a dozen fighter planes to Kyiv and has for the last three years been acting as a hub for both humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine.
Relations have soured more recently, though, with spats over grain imports and Ukraine’s refusal to acknowledge the Volhynia slaughter as genocide. Growing concerns within Polish society about the size of Ukrainian migration, estimated at more than 2 million, has also led to a downturn in relations.
Both the Tusk government and Nawrocki are in agreement that Poland will not send troops to future peace-keeping missions in Ukraine after any deal to end the war is agreed.
