The illusion that the war in Ukraine has nothing to do with us ended with the intrusion of Russian drones into Polish territory. This war has concerned us from the very beginning, wrote Tomasz Sakiewicz in the latest issue of Gazeta Polska.
A few days before the attack on Kyiv, Putin demanded that NATO withdraw its troops from Poland, which would have made us an obvious prey for his services and army. The Alliance did not give in, but even if it had, Putin would still have occupied Ukraine – only this time, the columns would have marched in with little resistance, had Kyiv also yielded to the Kremlin’s demands. Thus, even in the scenario of the present war, Poland’s subjugation was at the very least included.
Things clearly did not go well for Putin in Ukraine. The disgracefully lost battle for Kyiv, along with the halted offensive in the south and east, turned what was supposed to be a short adventure into a long and bloody war – a war of clashing potentials, in which Moscow naturally had the advantage. Western aid began to offset that advantage, but Russia too built a coalition – with Iran, North Korea, and China.
Donald Trump took office with great hopes that war-weary countries would give him the chance to conduct effective peace negotiations. He first decided to force Kyiv into them. That was not easy, since Ukraine is the victim of aggression and would now have to make concessions. Yet Ukraine’s situation is even worse than Russia’s. After more than three years of war, it has lost a third of its population, mainly due to emigration, much of its industry is either in Russian hands or destroyed, and, worse still, it is running out of soldiers, while equipment – even that supplied from the West – quickly wears out. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was forced by Washington into concessions, since he could no longer wage this war alone, nor even with the support of the European Union.
Dealing with Putin proved harder. In exchange for peace, Trump gave him a chance to return to the global stage and some concessions in Ukraine. That seemed quite a lot, given Moscow’s worsening economic situation and the enormous human losses at the front and through emigration. The problem is that those losses were too small to break the Russian army, yet too large for Putin to be satisfied with anything now. The only thing left for Trump was to raise the Kremlin’s cost of war. That is not at all a pleasant prospect for Putin. It may mean that sooner or later Russia will collapse into ruins, just like the USSR once did. In response, Putin decided to raise the cost of such actions for the West and attacked, albeit symbolically for now, Poland. NATO must respond very firmly – otherwise, the Kremlin has already won.