“Divide and rule” – this old Roman maxim has been well mastered by the Russians. The Kremlin is effectively dividing our society and setting us against Ukraine. How much longer will we stand by and let them do this?
For three years, Ukrainians have been pleading with the West to establish a no-fly zone over their country. While Ukraine’s air defences have, by and large, prevented Russia from gaining air superiority, Russian missiles, glide bombs and attack drones continue to kill civilians and destroy cities on a daily basis. Europe refuses to engage out of fear of direct confrontation with Moscow. This is both cowardice and a strategic blunder, one that invites Putin to pursue further aggression and to probe our borders – not merely in a metaphorical sense. The drone attack on Poland during the night of 9–10 September was a multi-layered test: of our air defence systems, of the state’s and society’s response, and ultimately of NATO’s reaction. If we do not close the skies over Ukraine, Russian drones will be falling ever closer to Warsaw and Berlin.
Russia’s state of war
We are at a turning point: for the first time we have been forced to partially close our own airspace in the east of the country – air traffic was suspended at the airports in Warsaw, Modlin, Lublin and Rzeszów.
To win this war we must stop pushing it out of our consciousness. Russia is waging war against the “collective West”, a claim deployed by Russian propaganda to excuse its lack of progress in Ukraine. False as this may be, it contains one truth: the West, while providing Ukraine with weapons and funds and imposing sanctions on Russia, is not a party to the military conflict and goes to great lengths to prevent “escalation”. At the same time, Russia is conducting, on a massive scale, an undeclared hybrid war against us – of which the information war is but one element.
We have grown accustomed to and tacitly accepted Russian propaganda and disinformation, the spread of toxic fake news and conspiracy theories. The result is deep social polarisation, the rise of populist sentiment and a nationalist tide in public and political life. We allow ourselves to be played like a child unwilling to provoke a formidable opponent – and thus he takes advantage and pushes even further. Yet in the geopolitical reality the absurdity is that, objectively, we are the formidable opponent: if not as the West, then at least as Europeans. We are allowing ourselves to be terrorised by an aggressor who is actually weaker, whose only advantage lies in a fighting spirit. The problem lies in our minds.
We failed to respond to the downing of isolated Russian drones over our territory, effectively inviting further penetration of Polish airspace. That is precisely what has happened — the Operational Command of the Armed Forces reported that our airspace has been “repeatedly violated”. One of the drones struck a house in the Lublin region. We are also failing to respond in any meaningful way to Russia’s regular jamming of GPS signals, no longer confined to the Baltic and north-eastern Poland, which poses a serious hazard to civil aviation. For that reason, a Ryanair flight from Gdańsk to Bratislava was forced to make an emergency landing in Vienna yesterday.
Politicians issue soothing statements, assuring the public that the defence systems worked. The Territorial Defence Forces (WOT) are searching for the fallen drones. It is telling that Ukrainian media and bloggers were the first to report the violation of Polish airspace.
A few weeks earlier, the government’s response to the downing of a Russian drone near Osiny was to reassure the public — apparently intended to calm a populace growing increasingly hostile to Ukrainians — that we would not send troops to Ukraine. In doing so we effectively excluded ourselves from any potential peacekeeping mission involving, among others, leading European states, a flagship initiative intended to guarantee compliance with a ceasefire. Of course, a ceasefire and peacekeeping operation are unlikely at present (not least because Russia shows no interest in halting the fighting), yet they remain important political demands. Poland, while seeking to raise its profile on the Ukraine issue, is thereby sabotaging its own efforts.
If we want to be regarded by Ukrainians as a strategic partner and to retain basic credibility within the EU and NATO, we must stop behaving like a temperamental saboteur. If Karol Nawrocki, by vetoing the law on assistance to Ukrainian citizens, is preparing to expel a million refugees from Poland, mainly women and children, then he is acting counter to Poland’s national interest aligning himself with Kremlin policy. Moreover, this fuels an unprecedented surge of xenophobic and ukrainophobic sentiment. Russia need not wage an information war if the Polish president is doing it on its behalf.
No-fly zone
If the government will not reconsider Poland’s participation in a possible mission to Ukraine, it should at least establish a no-fly zone over the western part of that country. This need not necessarily be a NATO initiative (which is currently unrealistic given US policy and resistance from other states), but could take the form of a “coalition of the willing” to which other countries would gradually accede. Beyond the political dimension, the required support would include supplies and the development of capabilities in the areas of anti-rocket systems, fighter aircraft, and surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles.
Defending Ukrainian airspace is entirely justified by the threat it poses to us. The project could be implemented in stages and crucially involve launching intercepting missiles in close coordination with the Ukrainian side, from the Polish side of the border. In practice, this would not mean Poland assuming sole responsibility for protecting the designated area, but rather complementing Ukraine’s air-defence efforts. We would gain valuable experience — from detection of hostile weapons, through logistics, to the interoperability of different systems — capabilities that Ukraine has already moulded into a relatively effective, complementary structure.
This does not imply a war with Russia (which, formally, has not even declared war on Ukraine). Any engagement would be based on an agreement with the sovereign Ukrainian authorities. Russian aircraft do not operate over western Ukraine, so in practice we are talking about intercepting Russian missiles and unmanned aerial systems (drones). Past experience with Putin’s Russia shows that a firm stance acts as a deterrent, while the absence of an adequate response encourages further aggression.
Such a move would be bold, akin to the decisions taken in the first weeks of the 2022 invasion, when the PiS government decided to transfer several hundred Polish tanks to Ukraine — a contribution that significantly helped repel Russian aggression. An initiative of this kind would once again place us at the forefront of countries supporting our neighbour, enhance our geopolitical standing, pave the way for others, and contribute to the repair and reset of Poland’s relations with Ukraine.
Poland profits from Russia’s war in Ukraine
In Ukraine, a brutal war for the survival of the state and its people is ongoing. Poland benefits from it in two ways.
- Firstly, for perhaps the first time in history, we are not required to directly confront a barbaric invader from the East threatening Europe; Ukraine is the frontline state — a bulwark of our civilisation and a shield protecting our security and way of life.
- Secondly, we are benefiting from the labour and spending of roughly two million Ukrainians living in our country, who already account for nearly three per cent of Poland’s GDP. According to a report by Deloitte and UNHCR, this amounts to 99 billion zlotys annually and six per cent of the domestic labour market (and in certain sectors — transport, construction, services, and agriculture — significantly more).
Ukrainians are not taking our bread — they are baking it for us. The analogy to Polish workers in the United Kingdom prior to Brexit, who became a convenient propaganda target, is hard to ignore. Many left, and post-Brexit the UK became Europe’s “sick man”, struggling to recover from economic decline.
We can win together with Ukraine, or lose separately. The choice is simple: we either fight for a shared future, or we regress into a shared past with Russia. “Divide and rule” – this old Roman maxim has been well mastered by the Russians. The Kremlin is effectively dividing our society and setting us against Ukraine. How much longer will we stand by and let them do this?
Source: wyborcza.pl
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