When the NATO leaders are calling the President of Russia “mad” and “crazy”, they are clearly engaged in emotional projection. Compare the difference between the mastery of the historical aspects of the current situation by Putin with the media histrionics and the disjointed ramblings of the unelected US figurehead, Biden. It’s also clear that Putin knows who Russia’s real enemies are.
Both the Europeans and European elites see that support for Ukraine is, in fact, a dead end, an empty, endless waste of money and effort, and in fact, serving someone else’s interests, which are far from European: the interests of the overseas global hegemon, which benefits from the weakening of Europe. The endless prolongation of the Ukrainian conflict is also beneficial to it.
Judging by the actual state of affairs, this is exactly what today’s US ruling elites are doing. Anyways, this is the logic they follow. It is largely questionable whether such a policy is in line with the American people’s true, vital interests; this is a rhetorical question, and it is up to them to decide.
However, massive efforts are being taken to stoke the fire of war – including by exploiting the ambitions of certain East European leaders, who have long turned their hatred for Russia and Russophobia into their key export commodity and a tool of their domestic policy. And now they want to capitalise on the Ukrainian tragedy.
In this regard, I cannot refrain from commenting on what has just been said and on media reports that have come out about plans to establish some sort of the so-called Polish-Lithuanian-Ukrainian unit. This is not about a group of mercenaries – there are plenty of them there and they are being destroyed – but about a well-organised, equipped regular military unit to be used for operations in Ukraine, including to allegedly ensure the security of today’s Western Ukraine – actually, to call things by their true name, for the subsequent occupation of these territories. The outlook is clear: in the event Polish forces enter, say, Lvov or other Ukrainian territories, they will stay there, and they will stay there for good.
And we will actually see nothing new. Just to remind you, following WWI, after the defeat of Germany and its allies, Polish units occupied Lvov and adjacent territories that had been part of Austria-Hungary.
With its actions incited by the West, Poland took advantage of the tragedy of the Civil War in Russia and annexed certain historical Russian provinces. In dire straits, our country had to sign the Treaty of Riga in 1921 and recognise the annexation of its territories.
Even earlier, back in 1920, Poland captured part of Lithuania – the Vilnius region, a territory surrounding the present-day Vilnius. So they claimed that they fought together with the Lithuanians against so-called Russian imperialism, but then immediately snatched a piece of land from their neighbour as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
As is well known, Poland also took part in the partition of Czechoslovakia following the Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler in 1938, by fully occupying Cieszyn Silesia.
In the 1920-1930s, Poland’s Eastern Borderlands (Kresy) – a territory that comprises present-day Western Ukraine, Western Belarus and part of Lithuania – witnessed a tough policy of Polonisation and assimilation of local residents, with efforts to suppress local culture and Orthodoxy.
I would also like to remind you what Poland’s aggressive policy led to. It led to the national tragedy of 1939, when Poland’s Western allies threw it to the German wolf, the German miliary machine. Poland actually lost its independence and statehood, which were only restored thanks in a large measure to the Soviet Union. It was also thanks to the Soviet Union and thanks to Stalin’s position that Poland acquired substantial territory in the west, German territory. It is a fact that Poland’s western lands are a gift from Stalin.
Have our Warsaw friends forgotten this? We will remind them.
Today we see that the regime in Kiev is ready to go to any length to save its treacherous hide and to prolong its existence. They do not care for the people of Ukraine or Ukrainian sovereignty or national interests.
They are ready to sell anything, including people and land, just like their ideological forefathers led by Petlyura, who signed the so-called secret conventions with Poland in 1920 under which they ceded Galicia and Western Volhynia to Poland in return for military support. Traitors like them are ready now to open the gate to their foreign handlers and to sell Ukraine again.
As for the Polish leaders, they probably hope to form a coalition under the NATO umbrella in order to directly intervene in the conflict in Ukraine and to bite off as much as possible, to “regain,” as they see it, their historical territories, that is, modern-day Western Ukraine.
Meeting with permanent members of the Security Council, 21 July 2023
This is one of Putin’s most important speeches since he called out “the Empire of Lies” and when he announced the Special Military Operation in Ukraine. It’s both a warning to the ambitious Polish leadership and an explanation of why the Russian military is increasing its activity; it will not be a surprise to any student of Russian military history if the Russians begin twin offensives once the Ukrainian counteroffensive is definitively over. It’s also a definitive marker of the NATO-Russian war entering a new and more dangerous phase.
Putin has openly called his shots since 2014. He’s given this enemies the opportunity to back down and avoid conflict. He’s also carried through with his threats. And he’s clearly promising the Poles that if they intervene to prop up the Kiev regime – even if their primary interest is to take former Polish land in Western Ukraine – Russia will take Stalin’s gift of the former German territories away from them.
While the Poles hate and fear Russia, one hopes that they will still have enough sense and self-interest to take this warning seriously. What profit it a Pole to gain Lvov for only to lose both it and Danzig?