When erstwhile Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki spoke in an interview with the French diary in early February 2023 Le Figaro:
“Sometimes Western politicians tell me, “We send you tanks of 50 years old, and you defend and give your blood.” This is an immoral approach” —
I was arrogant of him. I was arrogant of the attitude of the Polish government, who then helped Ukraine attacked by Putin.
And I said this as a Democrat, as a man powerfully opposed to the views of Jarosław Kaczyński, the Law and the full way they practiced politics.
But erstwhile Morawiecki says present that Poland gave Ukraine old tanks, “evil”, and the Ukrainians gave us their blood, I was speechless.
Those words are not just immoral. They're disgusting. They're inhuman. They are a denial of that solidarity, which Poland could have been arrogant of.
Because it's not realism anymore. It is simply a cynical pursuit of the Confederate, after Braun, after an electorate fed animosity to Ukraine. The Law and Justice Committee is increasingly recognising that since anti-Ukrainian rhetoric gives votes, it must be taken over, turned on and sold as a "defence of the Polish interest".
Except it's not a Polish business. This is simply a gift for Putin.
Putin wanted to fight Poles with Ukrainians from the beginning. He wanted to destruct our solidarity, make common distrust, turn gratitude and compassion into resentment, contempt and hatred. And now he doesn't gotta do it alone. It is adequate that in Poland there will be politicians willing to do this work for him — either out of cynicism, out of fear or for respective percent points in the polls.
I am ashamed that so many of my countrymen are being led by people whose words sound more and more frequently as if they were written under Russian propaganda.
I ask myself: how did it happen that so many Poles support groups whose rhetoric de facto fits into the Kremlin's goals? How did solidarity with the people murdered by Putin begin to be portrayed as naive? Where did basic human decency go?
You can argue about politics. You can criticize governments, decisions, costs and mistakes. But you must not trade the blood of people who defend their land against Russian imperialism. You can't turn their suffering into inexpensive election ammunition.
Because then not only does Ukraine lose. Then Poland besides loses.
