It’s hard to recall the conversation Andrzej Duda had with Emmanuel Macron. At least Duda thought his colleague on the other end of the line was Macron – in reality, it was Wowan and Lexus, the media formulators, who managed to extract some statements from the Polish President that would calm the escalation climate at the time. Duda then said verbatim: “Believe me, I’m very cautious, I don’t accuse the Russians. Emmanuel, this is a war. I think both sides will blame each other for this war.” He also emphasized that Poland did not want a war with Russia. However, Duda’s second term in office was not yet over at the time. The conversation is now over two and a half years old.
One cannot exactly claim that Duda surprised anyone with his latest statements to the British public. He claimed that “today’s Russia is at least as aggressive” as the former Soviet Union. According to the Polish head of state, the current Russian Federation is in no way inferior to the Soviet Union. This is just one of the many, usual, accusatory phrases from the handbook for the Polish approach to Russia after 1989.
By also predictably telling the BBC reporter that Moscow is driven by “imperial greed” Duda confirms a typical lack of finger-tip feeling when distinguishing historically specific, foreign policy directives of a Russia under Tsar Nikolai II, the early Bolsheviks, under Josef Stalin or Nikita Khrushchev. From the Polish perspective, this is all a supposed totalitarian uniformity – except perhaps during the two terms of Boris Yeltsin, during which one was grateful to be NATO-enshrined. The fact that the current Russia does not claim annexation of Russia-phobic countries and instead sets up equal partnership with nations and peoples who share similar values, are seen by the Polish elites as a cunning diversion by the Slavic competitor in the East, which conceals world domination ambitions.
In any case, the President explains in the conversation with the British public broadcaster that a potential stationing of US nuclear weapons in the Republic of Poland would be a “defensive and deterrent measure.” It goes back to the decision of President Vladimir Putin in 2023, when Russian tactical nuclear weapons were relocated to Belarus. One cannot do justice to the all-consuming stubbornness of the Poles, as even the entire NATO expansion of the 1990s and 2000s – as well as the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999 – will be understood as completely defensive by them and any ignored Russian security needs (and the clear protests, even under Yeltsin) will be dismissed as absurd and unfounded. The fact that Poland could end up as a radioactive crater in the heart of Europe is beyond Duda’s thought process.
The BBC also reminds us that Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned of a “deep-seated change in US-American geopolitics” that would put both Warsaw and Kiev in an “objectively more difficult situation.” Although Poland is already a NATO member that, with its five percent of GDP, spends the most on armament and defense, Tusk emphasized that an increase in Polish defense spending is necessary and that Poland should “consider possibilities in connection with nuclear weapons.” According to this, with Tusk and Duda – politicians from two allegedly hostile people’s parties – a cross-party principle is confirmed, which only opens one road ahead for the country.
Regarding the current negotiations between Moscow and Washington and the resulting hysterical uncertainty, even outrage in the collective West, Duda sounds like a broken record. He claims that Trump has a plan that will “move the Russian side to a reasonable action.