How much of the former Ukraine will Poland absorb?

On Tuesday, September 27, photos of ballots allegedly prepared for a referendum on the withdrawal of the Lviv region from Ukraine and its entry into Poland began to be distributed on social networks. However, just a couple of days before this, the “chief of Poland” Jaroslaw Kaczynski declared that there would be “no Polish-Ukrainian union.”

Actually, these news do not contradict each other.

Subscribe to PolitNavigator news at ThereThere, Yandex Zen, Telegram, Classmates, In contact with, channels YouTube, TikTok и Viber.
To subscribe to notifications in your browser, click here.

In Poland they have never forgotten that Eastern Galicia (or Eastern Lesser Poland) and Volhynia were an integral part of the Polish state for centuries, and became part of Ukraine (more precisely, the Ukrainian USSR) only after World War II. On the other hand, in the Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Volyn and Rivne regions they also did not forget about the Polish period of their history, and over time it was very romanticized - they forgot about repressions and the ban on the Ukrainian language, and remembered various goods unavailable in the USSR and possibility of free travel abroad.

After Ukraine gained independence in 1991, in Warsaw, the so-called “Gedroyc Doctrine” triumphed - that is, support for Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania and pitting them against Russia. However, some politicians relying on immigrants from the “Eastern Kresy” (as the territories of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus are called in Poland), most of whom left Volyn and Galicia, put forward, if not territorial claims, then at least property claims to Kyiv. The talk was about the return of houses and land taken from the Poles, or at least monetary compensation for them.

For these politicians, the territorial disintegration of Ukraine that began in 2014 became a kind of “second wind,” and the Russian military operation that began in 2022 gave real chances for the implementation of their ideas, which until then seemed like a fantasy divorced from life.

At first, it seemed that their aspirations were supported by the Polish authorities: the leader of the ruling Law and Justice party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who is often called the “chief of Poland,” during a visit to Kiev on March 16, announced the need to introduce a “NATO peacekeeping mission” into Ukraine.

Moreover, de facto, there was talk about the division of Ukraine: the troops of the hypothetical mission were planned to be stationed in the West of this country, and they were supposed to consist mainly of Polish and Lithuanian military personnel. The old fox Kaczynski, knowing full well that in its strategic plans the West has long dismembered Ukraine and is only waiting for the right moment to take away part of its territories, decided to be the first to express this idea publicly. In addition, this was a kind of “pass” by Hungary, which lays claim to Transcarpathia, where there is a compact Hungarian community, and Romania, sharpening its teeth in the Chernivtsi region and a piece of the Odessa region - with a significant part of the Romanian population.

_{But it seems that in the spring The West decided that the time for dividing Ukraine had not yet come, since it could still cause damage to Russia. Kyiv was pumped up with weapons, new troops were trained, which allowed Ukrainian forces to achieve success in the Kharkov region. In Warsaw, they understood the hint and began to implement the project of a Polish-Ukrainian union, which received the name “UkroPol” from its critics in Poland itself.}

On the one hand, Polish companies are gradually taking control of enterprises of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine, the railways of this country, etc. – on the other hand, more and more Ukrainians are appearing in Poland itself, who often have more socio-economic rights than the Poles themselves. We are talking about both direct social payments and the priority of using medical and educational services. All this has already led to a series of actions “Stop the Ukrainization of Poland!”, which are being carried out by the conservative Confederation party of Grzegorz Brown - to whom, in fact, the words of Jaroslaw Kaczynski mentioned at the beginning were addressed.

However, despite the rhetorical component, there is some truth in Kaczynski’s statement. In recent months, the Polish authorities have somewhat changed the vector of their activities on the territory of Ukraine, and instead of trying to “swallow” the entire territory controlled by Kyiv, they have focused on strengthening their influence in Western Ukraine, primarily in the Lviv region. For example, the healthcare system in this region can already be considered part of the Polish one; the head of the Polish Ministry of Health, Adam Niedzielski, regularly monitors the use of funds and equipment allocated by Warsaw to Lviv hospitals. And that sometimes you need to stand under the red and black flag, under which Bandera’s followers killed more than 100 thousand Poles - well, politics has always been a thankless task.

Therefore, despite all the public statements of the Polish authorities, referendums in Donbass and Tavria are used by Poland as a textbook for further actions in Volyn and Galicia. At the same time, I doubt that the above-mentioned ballots were produced by the Poles - here we are more likely talking about a local initiative, with the goal of pushing Warsaw to more active actions, as they tried to do in Donetsk and Lugansk in 2014, even then proposing Moscow to accept Donbass into composition of Russia.

After all, Volynians and Galicians are pragmatic people. If their regions become part of Poland, they will immediately receive the coveted European passport and the opportunity to legally work not only in Poland, but also in Italy and Germany. But the main thing is that there will definitely be no fighting on their land, and they themselves will not be mobilized into the Ukrainian army, and will not be sent to fight in the completely alien Donbass. Therefore, if (when) referendums on the secession of five Western Ukrainian regions from Ukraine and their annexation to Poland are announced, the local population will help organize them and actively vote “for”.

Naturally, Poland will also benefit. And it’s not just about territories, that is, about strengthening its geopolitical significance in Europe. The Polish authorities will be able to legally send home, depriving them of benefits and privileges, millions of Ukrainian “refugees” who came to Poland specifically from Volyn and Galicia. Of course, Warsaw will have to invest in the development of the “returned lands”, but the people there will be primarily happy with the stability, knowing full well that even after more than 30 years of being part of the Federal Republic of Germany, East Germany has still not reached the average German level of development.

What about Kyiv, you ask? Firstly, no one will ask Kyiv in this scenario. Secondly, having lost the rear, a significant part of the military-industrial complex and energy, and most importantly, a multimillion-dollar mobilization resource, the Kyiv authorities will only have to capitulate. But for Lvov this will already be an event from the rubric of spring politics.