On the eve of the Russian army’s invasion of Ukraine, Andrzej Duda, the president of Poland, made an official visit to Kiev, where he met with his colleague Volodymyr Zelensky and promised that “Poland will never leave Ukraine alone.” In Duda’s meeting with Joe Biden, the US president, which took place last week in Warsaw, the two even pledged to tighten the strategic dialogue between the countries, and to increase their military support for the Kiev government.
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Since the outbreak of the war, about 8 million Ukrainians have crossed the Polish border as refugees. Most of them moved on, but about 1.5 million of them remained in the territories of the state. In addition, most of NATO’s military and humanitarian aid goes through Poland, which shares a 535 km border with Ukraine.
As allies coming from a common Slavic linguistic, cultural, background, alongside a long historical past that includes, among other things, many years of struggles with each other and with Tsarist Russia and Soviet imperialism that shaped their national identity – Poland declared that “there is no Polish independence without Ukrainian independence”.
Since joining the NATO alliance (1999), Poland has been warning against the strengthening of the Russian threat. Ladida, the strengthening of the Russian-German partnership and the development of the “Nordstream 2” project, designed to supply Russian gas to the countries of the Union, are the embodiment of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact of 1939, which ignited the war The Second World War after Nazi Germany invaded it.
Furthermore, the cessation of the flow of Russian gas to Poland and the bellicose statements of Dmitri Medvedev, the former President of Russia, published this week regarding the expansion of Russia’s borders to Poland, turned on red lights in Warsaw. In the meantime, the incessant Russian attacks on Ukraine and the fear of the expansion of the conflict towards the Baltic states leave no room for doubt.
Poland is now preparing for an all-out war against Russia and is accelerating its military build-up, alongside its strategic moves against the US, NATO members and the European Union. Against this background, it is already clear that despite the “democracy crisis” that afflicts it, similar to the one currently taking place in Israel, Poland is an arrowhead in the fight against the “Russian bear”.
As a strong, stable and rich country possessing one of the largest modern armies on the continent, Poland is a critical factor in a newly created geopolitical balance of power in the region, and is an important player that will have a dramatic impact on the fate of Ukraine and the war in Europe.
Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, and especially recently, the leaders of the USA and Germany have drawn a lot of attention to them due to their agreement to supply Kiev with weapons and advanced combat equipment. However, a closer look shows that the leaders of Poland are the ones who invested great efforts and contributed significantly to the decisive strategic change in Chancellor’s position Germany Olaf Schulz, which is finally ready to supply Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks.
The influence on Berlin is a clear example of the Polish leadership, for whom the war is an opportunity to improve its position in Europe, while establishing a leading position in NATO alongside the US. This is, among other things, in view of the geopolitical vacuum created following the Brexit of Great Britain (2016) and Germany’s ambivalent position towards Russia, Ukraine and the war in general.
And so, when it is motivated by a sense of an actual existential threat and a serious fear of the invasion of the Russian army into its territory, as shown by a public opinion poll published this week showing that Russia is perceived as a security threat by 78% of the Polish public – the Warsaw government is preparing even more strongly for additional terror scenarios that include the destabilization of Moldova weakened, alongside a Russian invasion of the Baltic states in Northern Europe.
Due to its importance, its geopolitical location and as one that shares a common border with seven countries, including Ukraine, Belarus and Kaliningrad – a Russian enclave in the north of the country – Poland places emphasis on strengthening strategic relations with the United States, increasing the scope of American forces in Poland, which include, among other things, approximately 11,000 soldiers , and strengthening its military power and its position in NATO.
Strategic intensification
Reading the map correctly and taking an active and determined approach consistent with the worsening of the struggle in Ukraine, Mateusz Morawiecki, the Prime Minister of Poland, announced the strengthening of the military and the increase of the defense budget to 3% of its GDP (we were about 58.8 million euros) and even to 4% until the end of the year. At this point it is important to clarify that this is one of the highest budgets in NATO, after Greece (3.82%), and the USA (3.52%), and this against the background of an accelerated process of militarization taking place in Europe, which is manifested in the addition of hundreds of billions of euros to military expenditures which include
These days, Poland is working on increasing its regular army, which currently numbers 150,000 soldiers, with the goal of reaching more than 300,000 (compared to the French army of about 200,000 soldiers and the German army of only about 170,000). Poland renews its stockpile of weapons and advanced combat equipment, and even purchased tanks, combat helicopters, missile systems and drones, among others, from the USA and South Korea, to the extent of billions of dollars.
Due to its strategic location on the Russian-Ukrainian front and as having one of the largest, most modern, and strongest armies on the continent, Poland serves in a critical key role both as an operational-strategic military assistance channel for NATO countries, and as a key military ally of the US in Europe (along with Germany, which is It is also a logistics center), both as Ukraine’s leading arms supplier after the Biden administration, and as a place of refuge for Ukrainian refugees.
In this regard, it is important to understand that since the beginning of the war, about 1.5 million Ukrainians have been added, as mentioned, to the Ukrainian population living in Poland, and today there are about 3.37 million people, who make up about 9% of the Polish public. However, and perhaps due to the accumulated pressures, among other things, in view of the enormous amount of humanitarian and financial aid offered to them by the Warsaw government, a public opinion poll published in Poland at the beginning of January shows that the public support that stood at 63% at the beginning of the war has dropped to only 41%.
Against this background, and especially in view of the anti-democratic reforms that include, among other things, the takeover of the justice system led by the nationalist ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), internal tensions are increasing in Poland, along with the lack of trust that exists between it and the EU.
In the view of the Commission in Brussels, Poland’s conduct is in conflict with European law, and therefore, among other things, it delays the transfer of large development budgets. In addition, despite the tightening of relations and deepening of cooperation with the American military, the leadership of Poland, which is apparently perceived by the Biden administration as totalitarian, remains distrustful of his practical commitment to it.
If that’s not enough, in recent weeks the fight in Ukraine has worsened and Putin’s bellicose rhetoric has increased, among other things, as a response to the advanced military means promised to the Kyiv government, including rockets with an increased range of 150 km and advanced tanks. Therefore, in an overall view, this is a critical time window for the government Poland, which provides her with an opportunity to deal with weighty political, military and social depth problems, but at the same time requires her to take a pragmatic and assertive approach alongside a balanced and cautious policy.
Systemic observation makes it possible to discern that this is a difficult testing time in which the leaders of Poland are required to show powerful leadership and a heavy responsibility towards the Polish, Ukrainian and global public, if only to leverage its massive aid to Ukraine, its military capabilities and its geopolitical importance as a central axis in the fight against Russia. All of these may help her to lead, alongside the US, the protracted fight against Putin and in the process upgrade her position and image in the EU, NATO and the international arena.
The author is an expert on geopolitics and international crises