While Poland has been one of Ukraine’s biggest backers both in terms of military and financial aid, and also in terms of receiving a massive wave of refugees when the war started.
But it hasn’t been without friction. The Previous conservative government came to a point about a year ago where it stopped all military aid and blocked Ukrainian grain, coming to the point of harshly criticizing its president in public, as you can read in Polish PM Morawiecki Warns Zelensky ‘Never to Insult Poles Again’, as Grain Ban Feud Intensifies After Warsaw Decision Not to Send Any More Weapons.
With the liberal and Euro-fanatic government of Donald Tusk coming into power, one could imagine that relations would improve markedly, but that does not seem to be the case, as Polish media reports that Zelensky had a row with Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski as he visited Kiev on Friday (14),
The Polish portal Onet report is behind a paywall, and the MSM refuses to cover this, so here’s what can be found on Telegram and on the Ukrainian media.
Intel Slava reported:
“‘According to the participants in the conversation, the atmosphere between Zelensky and Sikorski was extremely tense, one could even talk about a quarrel. According to Onet sources, the Poles seemed to be at least surprised by the style in which Zelensky tried to treat the head of the Polish Foreign Ministry’, writes journalist, publicist and former Polish diplomat Witold Jurasz.”
Zelensky right away accused Poland of not supporting Ukraine in European Union accession talks, but Sikorski fiercely responded that it took Poland a decade to join the EU, and that the timeframe proposed by Zelensky’s office was ‘unrealistic’.
“The president then said that Warsaw should provide Ukraine with more military equipment and shoot down missiles and drones over Ukraine. Sikorski responded that this was impossible without a NATO decision.”
But the worst was still to come, as the meeting addressed the Volyn ‘tragedy’ – an episode in the second world war where Ukrainian Nazis attacked Polish civilians in nearly one hundred places in Volyn leading to the ethnic cleansing of the Polish population.
“Zelensky then said that Poland was blowing up the Volyn tragedy for domestic political reasons and should not raise the issue. Sikorski called for the exhumation of the victims for a dignified reburial.”
Ukrainian news site Pravda also reported:
“The Ukrainian president is also reported to have expressed indignation that Poland did not supply Ukraine with enough military equipment because ‘it didn’t want to do it’.
[…] Some people present at the conversation told Onet that at one point the atmosphere was so bad that it could be described as a scandal. […] The Lithuanian delegation led by Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis was also present, and it ‘made no attempt to support the Polish minister’.”
The Ukrainian officials contacted by Onet attempted to present the conversation in such a way as to make it look as if Sikorski was to blame for the tense atmosphere, Jurasz says.
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