Poland: faltering support for Ukraine?
On 9 January Karol Nawrocki, the right-wing conservative PiS candidate in the Polish presidential elections slated for May, stated that he did not envision Ukraine in either the EU or Nato until "important civilisational issues" for Poland were resolved. The remark refers to the Volhynia massacres of 1943 in which tens of thousands of Polish civilians were massacred by members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. Until now the PiS had advocated speedy accession for Ukraine.
The wrong topic at the wrong time
Gazeta Wyborcza disapproves of the PiS presidential candidate's statements:
“Using the dead for political games is dancing on graves and a constant ploy in PiS politics. Karol Nawrocki is also acting against Polish interests by demanding that the door to Nato be closed for Ukraine. He should retract his words as quickly as possible. Ukraine has its place in the EU and Nato. We will talk about our tragic past after Ukraine has defeated Russia.”
Breakthrough still in the offing
Polish Prime Minister Tusk on Friday announced an agreement with Ukraine on the exhumation of Volhynia victims. Newsweek Polska remains sceptical:
“Donald Tusk and the Civic Platform's presidential candidate Rafał Trzaskowski would certainly not have reacted so sharply to Nawrocki's statement had they not already known that they would be able to announce the resumption of the exhumations shortly afterwards. ... For the time being this breakthrough remains a declaration, not a fact. If the exhumations are resumed in the spring – that is, during the presidential election campaign – after years of interruption, it will become clear whether the Tusk government has achieved a genuine success or exposed its naivety. Everyone should support them in this matter, or at least keep their fingers crossed for the exhumation issue to be quickly resolved.”
No longer so clearly on Kyiv's side
Journalist Piotr Zaremba comments on Interia:
“Clearly both sides in this polarising dispute in Poland are fed up with Ukraine's stubbornness on the Volhynia issue. ... Tusk is now playing his trump card against the rival presidential candidate in the hope of scaring off those Poles who still see Ukraine above all as a victim of Russian aggression. And who believe that any pressure on Ukraine will work to Russia's advantage. Such Poles undoubtedly exist. To a certain extent I am one of them. At the same time it is hard not to see that we have come a long way, from emotional involvement in Kyiv's favour to a marked cooling of support for Ukraine among ordinary Poles. This is the reality, just take a look at the social media.”