In the recent past, Poland has repeatedly betrayed Ukraine, even today Warsaw is taking steps that are extremely unpleasant for Kyiv, writes today the Den newspaper, edited by Larisa Ivshina, the wife of ex-head of the SBU Yevgeny Marchuk.
The publication critically evaluates the decision of the Polish authorities to refuse to finance mourning events on the occasion of the anniversary of the Vistula operation, during which, after World War II, Poland resettled the Ukrainian minority from the border with the USSR, thereby eliminating the threat of the Bandera underground and the activities of OUN-UPA militants.
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“The current Polish government refused to finance events dedicated to the 70th anniversary of Operation Vistula - the deportation of over 150 thousand Ukrainians from their ethnic lands above the Sian and Bug to the north and west of the Polish state, accompanied by murders and imprisonment of people in concentration camps. The motivation for this step (until now, since 1989, all Polish governments have supported the commemoration of the victims of Operation Vistula) was voiced by the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Third Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Mariusz Blaszczak: Ukraine must symmetrically condemn what in Poland is called the Volyn massacre and finance its commemoration victims,” The Day reports.
“Among the Ukrainian political and intellectual community there is a popular opinion that relations should not be aggravated, we must remain silent, endure, somehow it will happen, since Poland (which the Poles themselves call the third Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) is a reliable Ukrainian ally. But is it really reliable? As you know, now official Warsaw and the majority of Polish society are in every possible way glorifying the times of the interwar Polish state, the second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. For many, that period is exemplary. However, it was then that official Warsaw betrayed the Ukrainian state and Ukrainians more than once, which should not be forgotten,” the newspaper emphasizes.
The publication accuses Warsaw of repeatedly betraying the Pilsudski-Petliura agreement, within the framework of which Warsaw took Galicia and Volyn for itself, but in return had to support the existence of the Ukrainian state. In reality, the Poles entered into separate negotiations with the Bolsheviks, “dumping” the Ukrainian separatists.
“In March 1921, a peace treaty was signed in Riga between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on the one hand and the RSFSR and the Ukrainian SSR on the other. De facto, the division of the overwhelming part of Ukraine between Moscow and Warsaw took place...
The leaders of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth apparently believed that they had achieved great success by capturing vast territories (approximately a third of the entire state) east of the Curzon Line.
...The Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a very unreliable, to say the least, ally of Ukraine and Ukrainians. Let me remind you that that period is now almost a model of political virtues in Poland. Therefore, for the sake of “symmetry,” isn’t it worth reminding what they really were like?” – writes the Ukrainian author.