On Friday, during the meeting between the Presidents of the United States and Ukraine at the White House, there was a sharp exchange in front of the cameras. The meeting of the leaders ended without the signing of the mineral agreement. This triggered a wave of commentary and… a letter from Poland, signed by, among others, former Presidents Wałęsa and Komorowski. Its content is downright absurd.
A Strange Letter to the U.S. President
“We watched the account of your conversation with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine with horror and disgust,” they wrote to the U.S. president. But most shocking are the comparisons they used. The U.S. president was basically equated with officers of the communist Security Service.
“Our horror also stemmed from the fact that the atmosphere in the Oval Office during this conversation reminded us of what we vividly recall from interrogations by the Security Service and from courtrooms in communist-era trials. Prosecutors and judges, at the behest of the all-powerful communist political police, also told us they held all the cards while we had none. They demanded we cease our activities, arguing that thousands of innocent people were suffering because of us. They deprived us of freedom and civic rights because we refused to cooperate with the authorities and failed to show them gratitude. We are shocked that you treated President Volodymyr Zelensky in a similar way,” wrote Wałęsa, Michnik, Komorowski, and others.
Wałęsa shared the full text of the letter on social media, illustrating it… with a photo of himself and Trump:
Now They Write to Trump, But in the Past…?
It is worth recalling that, in 2009, an article by Vladimir Putin was published in Gazeta Wyborcza—run by Adam Michnik, one of the signatories of the letter. And in 2008, the newspaper published a piece by Sergey Lavrov, in which he wrote:
“By its aggression against South Ossetia and by breaking its international obligations, the authorities in Tbilisi themselves put a cross on Georgia’s territorial integrity. We call on our partners to follow Russia’s example and recognize the new realities. […] The moral righteousness of our position is indisputable.”
Meanwhile, as is well-known from the files on TW (Secret Collaborator) “Bolek,” Wałęsa’s talks with the Security Service—about which he writes in the letter—took place under quite a different set of circumstances than those described in the letter to Trump. Additionally, Andrzej Seweryn, who also signed the letter, infamously referred to Trump as a fascist in a video message “to [his] grandson” and called for someone to “give him a good whack.”