Russia Needs To Rethink Its Understanding Of Poland

Various figures from Putin on down have shared inaccurate understandings of Poland over the past 18 months, which could contribute to the formulation of ineffective policies if left unaddressed.

Russian officials’ reactions to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s defense of the Nord Stream bombing culprits drew attention to their country’s dearth of expertise on Poland. Here are the analyses that followed Dmitry Peskov’s, Maria Zakharova’s, and Putin’s responses. This problem was already noticeable in early 2025 after the SVR chief hinted that Poland might reclaim Western Ukraine. That scenario was challenged here at the time while this piece here from earlier this summer elaborated more on that.

Several articles about Poland from earlier this summer preceded the abovementioned officials’ remarks about the country and showed how serious its dearth of expertise on Poland has become. Two were published by Valdai Club Programme Director Timofey Bordachev and one each by member of the influential Council on Foreign and Defense Policy Ilya Fabrichnikov and International Russophile Movement spokesman Tim Kirby. They were correspondingly responded to here, here, here, and here.

There are too many clarifications about the reality of contemporary Poland’s domestic political dynamics and foreign policy in the cited responses to enumerate in this piece, however, which will only summarize the main points for the convenience of casual readers. On the domestic political front, Poland is divided between its conservative President and ruling liberal coalition, while support for the two libertarian-nationalist opposition parties is rising ahead of fall 2027’s next parliamentary elections.

The aforesaid division has led to a dual foreign policy whereby President Karol Nawrocki promotes the US’ regional interests while Prime Minister Donald Tusk promotes Germany’s all while Poland continues to expand what’s now European NATO’s largest army. Nawrocki also wants to reform the EU in order to preserve Poland’s sovereignty while Tusk is suspected of wanting to subordinate Poland to Germany. Their competing goals have grand strategic implications for Russian interests.

If forced to choose between a Polish-led Intermarium or a German-dominated militarized EU, then the former would arguably be more in Russia’s interests as explained here late last year, ergo the need to reach a post-war modus vivendi with Poland for jointly building the new European security architecture. This was discussed in the earlier-cited response to Fabrichnikov. For there to be any realistic chance of that happening, however, the Russian State must have an accurate understanding of Poland.

Therein lies the importance of clarifying the reality of its domestic political dynamics and foreign policy in order to improve the formulation and implementation of Russian policy to that end given the country’s dearth of expertise on Poland. With the deepest of respect to all those whose opinions about Poland were responded to over the last 18 months, from the SVR chief to Putin himself, it’s clear that the Russian State as a whole has an inaccurate understanding of Poland that it must urgently rectify.

Left unaddressed, this problem can lead to the formulation of ineffective policies, thus impeding the advancement of Russian interests. Nobody has a perfect understanding of anything and there’s no shame in being wrong sometimes. Constructive critiques meant to help the recipient are one of the sincerest forms of support so hopefully relevant figures in Russia will appreciate this clarification instead of reject it outright like is unfortunately common for some of them to do with unsolicited feedback.