On Thursday, the world economic forum in Davos hosted a panel on the West’s relations with Russia. Politicians from Central and Eastern Europe took part: Valdis Dombrovskis, Radek Sikorski, Luminița Odobescu and Gabrielius Landsbergis. Among this group, the most influential is the Polish minister, who likes to present himself as an anti-Russian politician. Politicians seeking to give part of Ukraine’s lands to Russia are being swamped with “pocket chamberlains,” a reference to the procrastination of the pre-war British prime minister, whose subservience to Hitler increased the Third Reich’s imperialist appetite.
Sikorski spoke about Russia from a global perspective, referring to Zbigniew Brzeziński and telling a joke about the Russian story of the war with NATO in Ukraine. However, the Polish thread was interesting when Sikorski talked about how he himself played Vladimir Putin. The Polish minister mentioned three events that would prove the effectiveness of Sikorski’s policy.
The first is this Putin’s arrival in Gdańsk in 2009 for the anniversary celebrations commemorating the outbreak of the Second World War. The second was the arrival of the then Prime Minister of Russia to Katyn, and the third was the creation of a group of Polish and Russian historians to explain difficult issues of common history.
This succinct summary by Sikorski of his policy of rapprochement with Russia went unnoticed – and yet these were the foundations of the ‘Reset’ with Russia.
Sikorski claims that by coming to Gdańsk, Putin had to deviate from the Stalinist version of history, recognizing the beginning of the war in 1941. Meanwhile, Putin’s visit there was preceded by an unprecedented action – with the participation of ‘Gazeta Wyborcza’ – that called the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in response to Western aggression. It was then, at Westerplatte, that it became late President Lech Kaczyński delivered his famous speech in which the head of the Polish state reminded Putin not only of the former alliance with Hitler, but also of contemporary “neo-imperialist tendencies” in the form of the attack on Georgia. The Russian leader’s visit at the time was divided between the humble reactions of Tusk, Sikorski and Merkel and the non-conformist attitude of the late. president. Recalling that invitation as a success for Radek Sikorski or Polish policy towards Russia in general can only function based on the ignorance of the Davos public and the amnesia of the Polish minister himself.
Boasting about Putin’s presence in Katyn is even more absurd. Today we know that the meeting between Tusk and Putin in Katyn was part of the Russian game about the figure of the late. Lech Kaczynski. Even if someone denies the participation of Russian Ambassador Vladimir Grinin in the intrigues against the President and wants to perceive Putin’s visit to Katyn as a success, it is worth emphasizing: nothing of that event remains in the memory of Katyn. There wasn’t even a memorial plaque left at the site of the Polish genocide. So what is Sikorski proud of?
Sikorski probably had in mind the case of a group of historians The Center for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding, which at that time played the role of warming Polish-Russian relationsand not a specific civilization or Europeanization of intellectual circles in Russia.
In a word: Sikorski, flexing his muscles as an expert on Russia, presented it as a success… Diplomatic ‘reset’ with Putin. Gdańsk was a symbol of Europe’s subservience to Putin, and only for the late Lech Kaczyński the Kremlin’s narrative offensive stopped, Katyn was the result of playing off Donald Tusk’s government and then a symbol of the next national tragedy – today Sikorski presents examples of his own shame are like pearls in the crown of his diplomacy. God, keep Poland under your special care in the years to come.
Source: wPolityce