This is a machine translation of the original publication available here in Polish.
Throughout history, the period when Poland was treated by Russia as a normal neighbor lasted only a dozen or so years, says Professor Andrzej Nowak, historian, and author of the book “Poland and Russia. The neighborhood of freedom and despotism of the 10th-21st centuries”.
[Wojciech Mucha] You start your latest book, about the Polish-Russian neighborhood, with a story from the 10th century and end with the pictures from a moment ago - the terrible destruction of Kyiv. Are we still dealing with same Russia? Or maybe what we see today is its new incarnation - "Rusism", which is said to be a hybrid of fascism and national bolshevism?
[Prof. Andrzej Nowak] I begin the book with a statement that I am ready to defend: you cannot understand anything about today's Russia if you do not know history. All considerations about it - historical, political, geopolitical - will be suspended in a vacuum if we do not try to understand why 85 percent of the citizens of the Russian Federation support the actions of Vladimir Putin.
They support him because the Russian president tells them that Russia is again at the center of the world, that it is even stronger?
This is not explained by the desire to seize some industrial plants in Ukraine or strategic issues related to the war, but history explains it. She also explains the reasons for Putin's decision to a very large extent. I am not saying that Putin is guided only by historical reasons, but I believe that they play a genuinely large role in his decisions, and certainly in his mentality. And that is why, however, I urge us to seriously consider the history of Russia, Russian imperialism, and the history of Polish-Russian relations when we reflect not only on what is happening now. You say my book comes to today, but this is to reflect on what might be tomorrow. What may be tomorrow depends very much on what has been in the thousand years so far.
You think, professor, that Putin walked these corridors in the Kremlin and all those Peter, Tsars, Lenins and Stalins kept telling him a hundred times: What are you going to do? Take a look at us and think if you deserve your portrait to hang next to ours? Has Putin decided now to "creatively" answer this question?
Of course, this can be presented in such an imaginary, beautiful vision, but there are facts such as, for instance, Vladimir Putin's meeting with a group of historians at a time when the aggression against Crimea is taking place. When so much happens, when the green men occupy part of the territory in Ukraine, Putin finds three hours in his calendar to talk about the history and takes - I won't say very competent, but also authoritarian - a voice on purely historical matters: how to interpret the greatest misfortunes that have hit Russia, how they toughen Russia, why not be ashamed of comparisons with the short course of the VKPB, this new version of history that he is dictating to historians.
And the record of this discussion is available to the ordinary Internet user?
This is no secret knowledge. The transcript of the discussion was posted on the official website of the President of Russia. So you can see how much this matters to him. I have not heard Presidents Duda, Macron or Biden meet for hours of meetings with historians. Or Chancellor Scholz - whether they are interested in history or not. But for Putin and the Russians themselves, it is important because it permeates all Russian culture. One has to take into account that Russian culture is not innocent either.
Is the postulate that "Russian culture disappear from public space" - as demanded by the deputy prime minister of the Polish government - justified?
Of course, I am not a supporter of the thesis that one should reject Russian culture at all, not read it - I don't know - Chekhov, but also contemporary Russian writers, or not listen to Tchaikovsky's music. I like it very much, and I do it. I especially recommend Sergey Lebedev, a great Russian writer, currently in exile in Poland. But I come back to the fact that history is important and that Russian culture supports and carries this load of imperialism, and it is extremely effective. If you turn to Dostoyevsky, if you turn to Pushkin, to his extremely chauvinistic poems that are repeated over and over in Russian schools, in the Russian media, these are poems that declare war on the West, indicating that Poland is the main tool of the West here, forever dreaming of destroying Russia.
Russia, which not only fights for its life, but has a mission to civilize the West, save it from depravity, degeneration, and, more recently, from Nazism.
This shows how deeply rooted in the Russian mentality and culture, both high and popular, there is some kind of vision of the Russian Empire that has the right to conquer, always calling it a liberating conquest. Liberating the Orthodox from the power of Latin people or Islam or liberating those who are not Orthodox, but just need to be converted to the true faith, because they are stuck in the darkness of heresy or paganism. Then it replaces this release in the name of enlightenment on Peter's term. Peter and his successors, Catherine II included, liberated other Asian nations under the slogan "we bring the enlightenment torch of education" to Georgia, Kazakhstan, and, of course, the Republic of Poland.
Isn't “liberating” Poland almost an imperative for the successive rulers of Russia?
This was the justification for the first partition. Poland is a dark, black hole on the map of enlightenment, and you need to bring enlightenment here. It was discussed by Russian-paid philosophers and propagandists, and Western intellectuals such as Voltaire or Diderot.
A hundred and several dozen years later, communism, brought on Russian bayonets, was to liberate us again.
Third Rome, the ideology of the Orthodox Empire, is replaced by the Third International - and the Russians are liberating again as the main force of the Soviet Union. Stalin reoriented the entire identity of the Soviet Union to the old tracks of the Russian Empire. Since 1934, the Soviet Union has been unequivocally identified with the Russian Empire by Stalin himself. In May 1945, Stalin raised his famous toast to "the big sister of all nations". So that's Russia.
Is this a message that it was not the USSR that won the war in 1945, but that it was Russia?
Yes. Putin emphasized this in 2005, but Stalin spoke about it before him. It was Russia that won World War II, carrying liberation under the banner of communism - and now it is liberating itself from fascism again. You are right, gentlemen, that today one may get the impression that there is a synthesis of all these ways of justifying Russia's imperial conquests and justifying other types of liberation. Denazification is now called it, referring to WWII of course, but it could also be called a more modern language - protection of minority rights. I write in the last chapter of my book that Yeltsin has already picked up on this topic, which, moreover, is very suitable for Western partners. He proposed a deal to France where France would guard minority rights in Western Europe, and everything east of Germany would be looked after by Russia when it came to minority rights.
Under Yeltsin, an extremely bloody war broke out in Chechnya, but it was only under Putin that it ceased to be called a war only "Anti-Terrorist Operation", or KTO for short (контр - террорическая операция).
Thank you very much for the reminder, because this, in turn, is yet another small but characteristic phase in these shifting shapes of Russian imperialism - the anti-terrorist alliance with the United States. But it was short-lived. It was a very important phase, because it allowed the murder of two hundred thousand Chechens, so it was not just anything. And to the applause of a large part of the Western opinion. It was short-lived, however, because the next phase that followed was more important: cooperation with Western Europe against America and against the so-called new or younger Europe supporting America. So against Poland in particular.
You say where to look for answers to what Russia is. Why does the West keep making the same mistakes? It misjudges the intentions of the Kremlin and, last but not least, disregards Russian imperialism. Did they not know history in the West? Or maybe they know everything, but cynically choose the so-called Dialogue with Russia because they only mean business?
Unfortunately, it is not so in the West that history is known or that history is concerned. We live in a world a little closer to historical experiences. Some, of course, followed that silly slogan, made in 89 by an American celebrity, that the story is over. But we knew that it was not so, that anything could come back. In the West, it was much easier to believe that history is already something past, that we live in a time of stabilization, and material prosperity, where only the discovery of new minorities may be a cause for concern, although their fate - it is true, may be a cause for concern. Naturally, there are people prepared to professionally analyze the significance of history and geopolitical conditions for Russian policy towards the West. There are such people in Berlin and Paris, but their voice is applied to the public opinion, and the public does not want to know, it is not interested in this story.
Does this explain the almost traditional submission of the West to Moscow's never-satisfied appetite?
Russia addresses its imperial plans, carried out very consistently by various methods, to the elite of the West, speaking their language, which was very simply defined by Minister Lavrov in one of his directives to ambassadors in European capitals. At a briefing with them in 2007 or 2008 - these are official documents available to everyone - he said, "We only talk to the capitals of the traditional empire, these are only partners for us." That is: Paris, Berlin, London, possibly Madrid and Rome. we speak the language of traditional empires, i.e. the language of spheres of influence, because in empires they understand that small countries do not have a voice and it is natural that serious partners talk over their heads. Serious partners for Moscow, which is emphasized at every step, are currently Berlin, and Paris. This is the second reason why in the West there is an understanding of something that frightens us, that is, of successive appeasements, that is, the satisfaction of imperialism, in this case, Russian imperialism, at the expense of weaker countries by Western partners who believe that these weaker countries do not count anyway. So you can sell the Czech Republic or Slovakia, you can sell Poland or Ukraine, Georgia or some other small country. At the bottom, this is explained to Western public opinion as a “peace is more important” sort of argument.
Or is it the fear of the great invincible (it seemed) Russia? Although, according to Jan Kucharzewski, an exceptionally keen scholar of Russian history, the West's faith in Russia's power was often exaggerated.
Germany - only eastern Germany of course - has a relatively fresh experience of what the violence of Russian imperialism is. They remember about seven or eight million German women raped by the heroic fighters of the Red Army. The torturers were not only Russians, but mostly them. It is a bit of a paralyzing experience and lasts in the memory of the Germans. It is not mentioned because it is known - it is difficult to talk about such things at all, but it can cause two, actually opposite effects: on the one hand, we are afraid, so let's defend ourselves. I recall the attitude of Germany in the early nineties, the German minister of defense, who was the main advocate of Poland's admission to NATO. He said that Germany must have a foreground and that is why Poland must be in NATO and armed as best as possible. He was one of those who were afraid and therefore wanted to protect themselves by strengthening Poland.
We are saying the same about Ukraine today. It used to be called a sanitary cordon.
Yes, but this is a healthy reaction. This is normal and I have no complaints about that. I would like it to be so, but only some Germans think so - a small group and, what's worse, diminishing. They are representatives of the older generation who remember those times better. Many more Germans live in the post-historic world, believing that there is no aggression whatsoever. I remember having a shocking conversation somewhere after the concert in Munich. I was at a session, then I went to a concert at the Philharmonic, where the conductor is Valery Gergiyev - Putin's export conductor. I was returning by tram with some German, old lady who shared her impressions with me. And you said: "He conducts so badly, but it's good that there is a Russian here, because our government is terribly anti-Russian, these political elites are so anti-Russian, and Russia has never invaded anyone, never conquered anyone." I made a conversation. It turned out that this person was a retired history teacher. This reflects the quality and level of knowledge about Russia. Perhaps it would be otherwise if the French had a slightly more recent experience of what the Russian occupation was than the 1815/17 Normandy occupation zone of 1815/17, or if the Italians had a more recent experience of the presence of the Russian army in 1800 in northern Italy. It was commanded by Suvorov, the same who exterminated the people of the east-bank Warsaw. Who remembers that? In France, you remember there's a bistro, right? It's from the Cossacks who were there in 1814/15. They say to us, to Poles, to Ukrainians, to Lithuanians, that they are Russophobes who react hysterically to Russians, and the Russians are such a beautiful culture and there is some exoticism in it that these somewhat uninteresting Poles or Lithuanians lack.
Poles are to be less interesting than the Russians? Why?
I remember the reaction of a prominent American intellectual, probably of Scottish origin. Terry Anderson, the editor of the long-standing "New Left Review", such a major left-wing periodical in The Times (British), published a huge essay when Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia were admitted to the European Union. It was printed in the most popular Sunday ‘enhanced’ issue. He regretted what a pity it was, what a terrible mistake that these countries were admitted to the European Union because we are pushing away Russia, and in this way, he wrote: "After all, Russia's contribution to culture in Europe is hundreds of times greater than these countries." This reflects the awareness of someone who has apparently not heard about Chopin, Bartók, or Dvořák, but knows for sure that there were composers like Tchaikovsky or Shostakovich. Of course, he does not know that Shostakovich was the grandson of Polish exiles and thus became a Russian composer, but this is the mentality of - I would say - a large part of the Western elite, among whom Russia is admired as a country of great culture, which should not be alienated, but should be to talk and to be listened to. And if someone reminds them these Russians were also rapists and murderers in places like Katyn or Chechnya, then this is just a “phobia”. Such is the state of mind of the Western elites and that is why now these terrible images from Ukraine are in a certain sense a wake-up call.
Have we ever experienced anything good from our eastern neighbor, other than wars, looting, destruction, and evil?
The only time when these relations between the Republic of Poland and Russia, or more anachronistically, between Poland and Russia, were relatively good was when there was a kind of “fake” balance.
Fake?
This is the moment right after The Peace of Grzymułtowski in 1686. During this period, Poland confirmed that it gave up eastern Ukraine, which de facto meant that Russia was gaining a decisive advantage in the Baltic-Black See region. Poland, however, was still a large country whose Polish-Lithuanian armed forces had just won a brilliant victory in Vienna. So Poland still had to be reckoned with. And this is the moment, roughly twelve years, when Poland was indeed treated by Moscow as a normal neighbor.
When is Russia not yet that strong and Poland is not yet that weak?
The other way round. Russia just got what it wanted and did not continue the conquest of Poland for the time being. This is the moment when a phenomenal fashion for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in Russia. The Russian court spoke Polish, read Polish books - these were the very first books that were ever read there, wore Polish costumes, and Russian painters used to make portraits of their nobles like Polish Sarmatian portraits. It was indeed such a period, a dozen or so years, and it ended, because Peter - the new tsar, understood that further strengthening, and further expansion of the Russian empire must consist in choosing a model other than Poland to follow. They could not imitate Poland, because it was a country that, firstly, stood along the way of their expansion to the west, and secondly, it was a country that did not offer quick means of technological modernization, and these could be found only further, in the northwest countries: in the Netherlands, northern Germany, in England. So, Peter initiated the modernization of Russia following the Protestant model. Of course, Poland was a direct obstacle and Peter took the first opportunity to overcome it.
What do you mean?
During the Great Northern War (1700–1721) Poland was severely humiliated by Sweden. Then, we allied with Russia against the army of Carl Gustav but the outcome was disastrous: the War of the Polish Succession which proved disastrous for Polish independence. This is a paradox worth realizing. Poland was enslaved by Russia only at the beginning of the 18th century, it was not the case before.
For Russia, Poland is either on the periphery or on the expansion route of the empire, and at the same time, we often hear in public space that Polish eastern policy does not exist, that it is not active, that it is only passively watching what Russia is doing. What is the balance of Polish policy towards Russia after 1989?
Relative consensus in our eastern policy lasted from the collapse of the Soviet Union until 2007. Regardless of whether ruled: the Socialists, The Union for Liberty, The Civic Platform, or Law and Justice. The radical break took place in 2007, because for the first time after winning the elections, Prime Minister Tusk decided to go first to Moscow, and not to Kyiv, at a time when Russia was already waging an extremely sharp and brutal gas war with Ukraine. Minister Lavrov, during the visit of Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski to Moscow, preparing the meeting of Prime Minister Tusk with President Putin, said that Poland clearly sided with Russia against Ukraine and did not lie, because minister Lavrov often openly says certain things, and Poland did not cut off this interpretation. On the contrary, as declaratively “liberal” Tusk and Sikorski emphasized in many speeches - for us the most important factor is the factor of force, and our strongest neighbor in the east is Russia, so we must talk with Russia, not with Ukraine or Lithuania. Here, in particular, Minister Sikorski spoke with extreme contempt about Lithuania. It was funny, the saber jangling. We, the great ones, Lithuania will not jump on us. I'm sorry, but this was the key most often used. So there is a great Russia and we will talk to her to show also that those losers who were before us (the conservative Law and Justice, the party of the Kaczynski brothers), did not know how to communicate with Russia, and we will show how to do this.
This is one of the interpretations, but there have been suggestions that Donald Tusk was simply implementing German policy. What did you think was more important?
I do not know, but Tusk was actually doing what Chancellor Merkel was guided by, i.e. maintaining this, I would say, good mood for trade with the Russians, which was beneficial for Germany. Except that this pseudo-reset brought not only gigantic damage, destroying the eastern policy of the previous dozen or so years - I am intentionally saying that not only these two years of Law and Justice term (2005-2006), but several years - but it also exposed the internal fragmentation of Poland. That was what Moscow was all about - breaking up Poland from within. There was President Lech Kaczyński, who was in course of implementing what we can call the traditional Polish eastern policy, which he implemented in a quite effective and efficient manner because these were not only some symbolic gestures but above all a project of creating an alternative energy supply system for the entire region, through the Black Sea from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. There have been several conferences devoted to the preparation of this project and the government comes to say that we have nothing to do with it, and the President of the Republic of Poland has no right to deal with foreign policy. But since 2007 all attention was shifted to Russia. Kaczyński’s ideas were thrown away as delusional and Polish diplomacy started a new chapter with Moscow. At that time, a certain coherence of Polish policy was destroyed and a fundamental division into foreign policy was introduced. The exclusion of the conservative president during this cohabitation was extremely harmful to the state and extremely beneficial to Russian imperialism. The tragic finale of this was the separation of visits to Smolensk.
When Tusk was on his way to Moscow, Russia had already pacified Chechnya, and a few months later it attacked Georgia. Many years earlier, in the famous "Sketches with a feather", Andrzej Bobkowski called the Sikorski-Majski agreement of 1941 a mouse-cobra pact. How is it possible that Tusk and Sikorski (nomen omen, what a coincidence of names) did not understand that in the deal with Putin they can only count on the role of a mouse?
What Tusk and Sikorski's team did in eastern politics was worse than a crime, it was a mistake to use Talleyrand's quote. I say that because the second aspect of this change was that it was made after Vladimir Putin declared war on the West. It wasn't that there was some liberal Putin back then. In February 2007, the Russian president did not lie again, but said straightforwardly - we are at war with the West, and do something about it. I mean, you can talk to us if you accept it and Donald Tusk accepted it. When Putin arrived at Westerplatte and was received with the highest honors by Donald Tusk, he made a terrible speech, suggesting not elsewhere but at Westerplatte that Germany and Russia were entitled to a rematch in 1939 for their humiliation in the First World War. This was the essence of Vladimir Putin's speech, and Donald Tusk justified Putin's invitation that at last the High Representative of the Russian Federation would admit what the Second War began with and what the historical truth was. Well, he heard that well. Of course, President Kaczyński responded to this, which was ignored in Poland by the liberal media, then the absolutely dominant one, headed by Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper. Meanwhile, we had a great holiday when Vladimir Putin came to Poland and was honored as prime minister, although exactly in the same week the “Zapad 2009” drills began, in which Russia officially and legally practiced the tactical nuclear attack on Warsaw. It was no secret. It was written about in the media because it was part of the maneuvers reported in the NATO-Russia agreement. These were the conditions that Russia set when the Polish media choked on what kind of friendship there was between Poland and Russia. Minister Sikorski wrote in Gazeta Wyborcza on Prime Minister Putin's visit that Russia had never in its history been so democratic and in a sense open to good relations with Poland, as it was then. Then, when he is practicing a tactical nuclear attack on Warsaw - Minister Sikorski did not add this, but he knew it was so.
This is no longer a mistake, but a complete disaster.
It was a gigantic and decisive success, not of our government, but of Vladimir Putin's policy, and at the same time a terrible defeat of Polish eastern policy. It has been discredited because when Poland capitulated, abdicated, and agreed to such humiliations, it also cuts itself off from Ukraine. Several statements by Minister Sikorski were shocking in the contempt then displayed for Ukraine. Let's be short, unequivocally, I am ready to defend this sentence in any situation. In 2007 or 2014, the Polish government was extremely precisely implementing the political line of Moscow, Vladimir Putin. It just did better than any of Vladimir Putin's Western partners.
This does not seem the best certificate for our government at the time.
It shows what it shows. I'm just answering your questions. There is one more aspect worth remembering that we have not mentioned. It seems obvious, but it must be remembered. In August 2008, Russian tanks set off for the sovereign country, and only the moral and diplomatic intervention of President Kaczyński saved Georgia from today's fate of Ukraine. It was when Minister Sikorski in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was ruling, and Prime Minister Tusk in Aleje Ujazdowskie, and yet it did not have the slightest effect on any change in this policy towards Russia, although Russia had already taken the territory of a neighboring country, armed and in fact joined its own. This should revise the flawed policy immediately if it was made a few months earlier or a dozen or so months earlier. However, this did not happen. This shows some shocking - I won't even say - blindness, but persistence in error, which had enormous costs, and not only for Poland. What happened after April 10, 2010, was of great importance for the whole of Eastern Europe. Then, when it is necessary to explain a catastrophe of this scale, Poland raises its hands up and gives all the tools to lie to the most politically corrupt institution in the world, which is the Russian prosecutor's office, and its prosecutor general - Yuri Chaika is the one who supervised the investigations into the death Anna Politkowska, Borys Bieriezowski...
Navalny made one of the most famous investigative films about him. It shows that Chaika is at the head of a criminal gang responsible not only for gigantic corruption but also for a massacre in one of the cities in southern Russia, which killed 12 people, including 4 children. They were stabbed with knives, strangled, and then set fire to the house with the bodies inside. The murder was carried out in the same 2010.
Yes of course. He is a man for special tasks - the evilest one, used for dirty work. I would say in the Russian prosecutor's office, for all the worst tasks. And this man receives, with the consent of the Polish Prime Minister, the task of explaining the Smolensk catastrophe. What is the reaction in Kyiv, Vilnius, and Minsk... I don't mean only governments, but people: "There is no help, we have to give up, because if Warsaw behaves like this, then there is no alternative. This is the Russian sphere of influence."
This is one thing, but on the other hand most, even the most ordinary people from that area, countries conquered by Moscow at one time or still dependent on the Russian Federation, there was no doubt who was responsible for the death of the Polaish president, generals, and the Polish elite. They pointed to the Kremlin and were convinced that everyone in Poland knew this.
Of course. I had numerous conversations; e-mail and telephone contacts just after April 10, with many people, not only from Ukraine or Belarus or Lithuania but also from Russia itself... Everyone “knew” what happened, I mean no one had any doubts, and there were hundreds of e-mails, etc.
It has not changed until today.
Yes, but all those who contemplated the policy in this situation were then looking at the reaction of the Polish state, and the reaction of the Polish state was shocking. Let me recall the words of President Komorowski - then the Deputy Speaker of the Parliament - when shots were fired at the Polish president’s cars column on the Russian-Georgian front line. The Deputy Speaker of the Sejm mocked this with the words: "What a visit, such an attack". Regardless of the fact that it happened on the front line with Russia, let's imagine that the opposition lord speaker in the House of Commons scoffs at the attack on the British Prime Minister because he is from an opposite party. It is simply impossible in any country, and in Poland in 2008 it was possible. This shows Putin's greatest success - dragging the liberal Civic Platform to the position of completely dependent, mentally and morally, agents of influence.
Could what happened after April 10, this policy of submission, had an impact on Poles to such an extent that it was they who said, even somewhere subconsciously, that since our authorities do not want to do anything about it, we do not accept this information? And what is happening now, is that even if we show in black and white: "hello, here it happened, there are reports, state documents", it does not change anything, the element of denial is stronger.
I look at it similarly, but maybe a little differently, that is, looking for the sources of this attitude in what I expressed in response to the previous question, namely moral and mental dependence. People who have invested so much emotion in this internal struggle in Poland that everything the Law and Justice does is bad, absurd, and stupid and therefore this Lech Kaczyński was also evil and stupid. We all know the techniques of anti-conservative propaganda: right-wing is ugly, right-wing is evil, right-wing is bad... And suddenly it has turned out that maybe Polish right-wingers were somewhat right about the Russian issue, about their distrust of Putin, about Russia.
Is today's opposition, the reset camp with Moscow, the camp opting for the Smolensk investigation to be handed over to prosecutor Czajka, the camp, if one can say so - looking for electoral success in deepening the internal political conflict in Poland, still have a more state-minded, conciliatory thinking in the face of Russia's aggression against Ukraine?
I wish it were so. But I can’t say this for sure and at the same time. I guess that it cannot be one hundred percent certain. It's just that some people not only invested some kind of emotions in a certain interpretation of contemporary reality that there is a bad camp, which is always bad, and we are within the good camp, and if this good camp invested in a friendship with Putin, then he was probably right, apparently it was good at this stage. Now I meet representatives of this broadly understood camp, from the part of the Civic Platform voters - this kind of reaction: "Do not resemble those things, because this is prehistory, these are reheated chops" - so I hear.
Tell the historian that it does not matter what was 1000 or 100 years ago, let alone in the times he remembers, it is quite risky.
And this is about what was only seven or eight years ago, what was consistently implemented for seven years, that is, for a quarter of the history of the Third Republic of Poland. And it is supposed to have no meaning, no impact on what happened next, because today is different? Well, this is what shows, in a sense, the most terrible effect of the many years of Soviet occupation in Poland, because this, of course, was built over decades. I mean the times from 1944 or 1939 and the renewal in a sense of this tradition in special conditions after 2007.
What do you mean, professor?
The ability to completely distort reality, such as a Soviet lie, as I call it, which is different than the average lie of a politician because politicians know that they cheat a little, and manipulate electoral opinion only a little bit because this is what used to be normal in democratic politics. But to say what Donald Tusk said during the interrogation as a witness in 2011 about the Smolensk catastrophe? He said (it is recorded in the District Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw) that he found out about President Kaczyński's intention to visit Smolensk from the media. This is a Soviet-style gross lie.
As far as we recall, probably nobody at the time, at least from his political camp and the media, reproached him for it?
This is something so brazen, so shockingly brazen, and the fact that it is accepted by the recipients of this message: "Well, maybe you can say that...". In the same way, the same people now say that what happened so consistently for seven years, for a quarter of the history of the Third Polish Republic, and which so influenced the history of Central and Eastern Europe, has no meaning today, it does not matter because that the Russian expansion into Ukraine then developed. This statement - these are old chops, it is only possible because you can break the reality into pieces that are convenient for you and say: there is no fact left, now there is something new, and as usual... Prime Minister Tusk is right, and Kaczyński, as usual, is wrong. And this happening on a daily basis because, of course, the conservative government is wrong on many issues. It is normal in democratic states that politicians make mistakes, but when it comes to the policy towards Russia, which is deadly for us, a matter that is in some sense the most important for us, it turned out that this camp was definitely right, and the Opposition was terribly wrong. But the other side will not admit it, or - at most will say: "let's cut it off with a thick line."
Again "thick line"? Will we never be free from it again?
You may have to agree to it, you have to accept it, but with one restriction. Those most responsible for this error, which cost so many lives, and I do not mean here the victims of the Smolensk tragedy, responsible for the crimes of this turn towards criminal and aggressive Russian imperialism, which paved it the way for further progress and success... These people should be excluded from political life once and for all - that's all. All the rest, the whole crowd of their followers, should rethink this one mistake, perhaps. Let them agree with every other aspect of the politics of their favorite party and their favorite leader, but in this matter, this leader and this party made a mistake that costs us enormously today, because we will have to arm ourselves now and it will be enormous sacrifices. The good time has ended and it will not come back, I think, for the next dozen or so years, because the new crisis that has begun now will have enormous consequences, not only that it will be necessary to devote a very large part of the tax budget to armaments - it is simply necessary. I'm obviously all for it, only it won't be for free, but at the cost of your living standards.
It is with us, and in the world?
It will be, for example, a gigantic new wave of migration that will come from the south, that is, not from Ukraine, but from Africa. Egypt, which has 110 million inhabitants, today has no bread, because 80 percent of it is the imported grain from Ukraine and Russia, and they will not get this grain anymore, which, of course, Russia will cease to support, even if this war - God forbid - ends as soon as possible. Russia will try to strengthen this global food crisis, which will result in the migration of millions or tens of millions of people from the south into Europe. And there will be tension again within the European Union... All these results from the mistakes made in 2007-2014 by Germany and its acolytes - filling their political line, I would say servants.
The book ends in modern times, now that the war in Ukraine is raging. A battle is underway in Donbas, which, according to some analysts, is to decide the fate of the entire war. Can you compare what is happening in Donbas to the Battle of Warsaw in 20? So we either stop Russia and it will change, or it will eat us up in the coming years?
In short, we'll see it in about 200 years. On the one hand, the battle that is currently taking place in Donbas is certainly not in the least similar to the Battle of Warsaw, the Battle of Kursk, or Stalingrad, because it is completely asymmetrical battle. This word is fashionable now, and it is adequate here because the Russians lack infantry, and the Ukrainians lack tanks - and both are necessary to win this battle. This is well reflected in the old adage from this region: "Tatar has grabbed the legs of the Cossack while the Cossack was holding his head." I do not believe that this war will end soon., The war may result in some sort of peace agreement enforced by Western powers, that is, “let Ukraine give up this Donbas, this Crimea, Chersonia. Odesa will see it, maybe we will save Odesa...”. West-European powers would welcome this sort of agreement very much. We will also be very happy when this war ends, but let us remember that what will end in the near future will only be a certain stage of this war. The problem of Odesa will come back one day and we are certainly included in the scenarios of the next stages of this war by both main parties to the conflict: Russia and the USA. The ranks of American politicians and military men involved are proof of this.
During the parade on Red Square, Vladimir Putin said directly that Russia was attacked by the West...
And Russian propaganda, Russian politicians also openly say that they want to attack other countries in the next stages of the war. Of course, it is not about scaring us now that they are about to drop a bomb on our heads, but that we do not feel reassured, asleep that there will be some truce, some Minsk or non-Minsk agreement. It doesn't matter where it is contained. I would only urge and beg Polish politicians not, God forbid, to play the role of guarantors or intermediaries in any agreement, because this is the worst role and can only be won by Moscow. It was for me a huge success of the specific ineptitude of Minister Sikorski that he failed to push us into the so-called Minsk agreements because he really wanted to enter the Normandy format. This is his great merit because we would be responsible for robbing Ukraine. Of course, any agreement now made will serve that purpose in the long run.
The Law and Justice then criticized Sikorski for this “success”.
I knew from the very beginning that this was a trap because the French and the Germans were there, it was obvious that they would be there. But Poles, that they should take part in the partition of Ukraine? Putin encouraged Donald Tusk to do so several times.
Was he encouraging just to let him go? Did he count that such an offer could be accepted? And then what? Was it such a Soviet bluff to catch him and have a “Kompromat” in a drawer, a “hook” on him?
I do not know. I think both. That is, the latter is certain, but the former is such an interpretation that Putin would actually enter into some partition agreement with Poland, obviously valid for a few years at most before the partition of Poland and Germany is carried out. Unfortunately, there are some idiots in Poland who say: What a pity that we did not communicate with Russia and we would regain our beloved Lviv ... I also love Lviv. I was there on our honeymoon and we go there for the next anniversaries, but this is thinking about the partitions, and the partitions do not end in Ukraine, but always have the next stage in which Russia communicates with someone more serious than Poland, i.e. with Germany. So much for partition enthusiasts. However, I believe that Putin believes in such historical analogies and believes that this would be a temporarily good solution. Let the Poles take this Lviv, of course, with those Ukrainian nationalists and let them get tired of it, and I will take what is Russian like Catherine, when she made the Third Partition of Poland, she issued an order with the inscription "Отторженная возвратих" (lit. rejected returning) - that is, I took what was torn away, that is, I only took what was mine. Putin does not have to take Lviv. He assumes it's a bit of a foreign town. He traveled as a KGB officer during his holidays not to Lviv, but somewhere in the Carpathians. I do not know if he misses those years of his youth so much that he must have these Carpathians in his country again.
However, Kyiv, as was evident in the first days of Russia's attack on Ukraine, is no longer considered a foreign city.
Kyiv is not only a dream of Vladimir Putin. Kyiv, Odesa, the entire so-called Novorossiya must be recovered, because that is what the Russians want, and Vladimir Putin is a good democratic leader of his country, who, moreover, fulfills the will of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who said that Ukraine must be ours, but also Belarus and half of Kazakhstan. So there is still half of Kazakhstan left.
What is the point of Russia's existence? Why is Russia there if it is the cause of so many misfortunes in the world? The Tatars who lost Crimea and Chechnya eight years ago forced to flee their homeland, say that Russia is the state of Satan, and that evil resides out there.
I can answer extremely briefly, as to my talkative. First of all, only God knows the answer to this question. And secondly, if I had to look for some clever trick to such a difficult question, it gives me Russian wisdom - the Russian folk proverb: "На то и щука в море, чтобы карась не дремал" (You have to be ready for any unpleasantness) - that is this empire is there to keep us awake. They did not think that history is over, that only LGBT people are important, and that we only have some problems left with obesity.