The Latest Polish-Ukrainian Dispute Is Manageable But Will Still Toxify Mutual Perceptions

The lesson is that giving Ukraine what it wants never leads to appreciation and respect, but is always taken for granted and seen as a sign of weakness, which reaffirms Ukrainians’ belief in being superior to their benefactors.

Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski’s latest trip to Kiev was disastrous. Polish journalist Witold Jurasz reported that Zelensky accused Poland of withholding military aid after Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz declared late last month that his country maxed out everything that it could give to Ukraine. Zelensky reportedly didn’t believe Sikorski either when he told him that NATO would have to approve Poland intercepting Russian missiles over Ukraine like Sikorski himself has lobbied for.

Jurasz also wrote that Zelensky accused Sikorski of exploiting the Volhynia Genocide for domestic political purposes and disagreed with the Polish Foreign Minister that exhuming the victims’ remains and giving them a proper burial would be a Christian gesture that Poles would appreciate. In that journalist’s words, "Some people present at the conversation told Onet that at one point the atmosphere was so bad that it could be described as a scandal.” The Ukrainians then blamed the Poles for these tensions.

An unnamed source described as “close to the Polish government” confirmed a few days later in comments to publicly financed TVP that “the atmosphere at the talks in Kyiv was chilly.” They added that the “single request (for the exhumation and burial of the Volhynia Genocide victims as a Christian gesture) was not accepted by the Ukrainian side, which in turn issued a list of demands it expected Poland to meet.” Ukraine also reportedly shared a false understanding of what’s required to join the EU.

The source elaborated that “Ukraine imagines the negotiations to join the bloc are some sort of a compromise and that it can meet in the middle with Brussels. That is not the case when joining the EU. Ukraine must meet all the conditions to join.” Shortly afterwards, Polish journalist Marcin Terlik reported that Poland is planning to use its rotating six-month presidency of the EU next year to pressure Ukraine into complying with its demands to exhume and properly bury the Volhynia Genocide victims’ remains.

He quoted his own inside source who told him that “Sikorski was trying to persuade Zelenskyy to settle historical issues with Poland now, as he would pay a lower price for them than during the accession negotiations. This did not reach Zelenskyy.” On the subject of their dispute over Ukraine’s EU membership, Terlik reported that Poland considers Ukraine’s demand to open up all negotiating chapters at the same time to be “unprecedented and very complicated.”

His source reassured him though that “Kyiv needs Warsaw's commitment to accession. And this is where there is room for conversation. We will help them if they help us…(but) military and defence issues will not be a bargaining chip.” Reflecting on these three interconnected reports, it’s clear that Poland are Ukraine are once again embroiled in a series of political disputes just like they were one year ago, but this time it’s much more manageable since the border is still open and arms are still flowing.

Nevertheless, it’ll still serve to toxify mutual perceptions since the issues at the center of this latest dispute are extremely sensitive for both sides. While it was earlier thought that the clause from this summer’s security pact about standardizing historical narratives would lead to Poland whitewashing the Volhynia Genocide, it now turns out that public pressure succeeded in making this a major issue. Sikorski is therefore compelled to demand that Ukraine finally resolves this part of their dispute in Poland’s favor.

All that he’s asking for is to exhume the victims’ remains and give them a proper burial, not for Ukraine to condemn Hitler’s local collaborators who carried out this war crime and then went on to be celebrated by the state as “national heroes”. Zelensky is reluctant to do that though since even tacit acknowledgement that the over 100,000 Polish civilians who were slaughtered by Ukrainian fascists were victims of a war crime could be exploited by the perpetrators’ modern-day successors to discredit him.

It's beyond the scope of this analysis to elaborate on, but contemporary Ukrainian nationalism is informally divided into two schools, the first of which obsesses over differences with their neighbors and fiercely hates them while the second prioritizes socio-economic cooperation with them over all else. The former is clearly ruling the roost nowadays, and their thugs are willing to resort to force for intimidating civil society and the state alike into complying with their radical interpretations of history and identity.

This thinking also expands into the sphere of economic cooperation as proven by Ukraine ridiculously demanding that Poland unprecedentedly open all negotiation chapters at the same time in order to speed up its membership in the EU. The ruling Ukrainian nationalist school is averse to compromise of any sort, which it considers a sign of weakness, especially whenever this concerns a compromise with its neighbors who they despise and consider inferior.  

The failure to get what they want from them leads to extreme rudeness and sometimes even implied threats, the overall attitude of which shocked the Polish delegation during Sikorski’s latest trip to Kiev. It shouldn’t have surprised them though since this approach is well known, but that just goes to show how misguided their perceptions were up until then. In a cynical sense, it’s actually a good thing that Zelensky and his team disrespected Sikorski and his since this might finally sober the second up.

Judging by what’s been reported in Polish media over the past few days, Tusk’s Ukrainophilic government is finally waking up a bit to the reality of today’s Ukraine, which arrogantly considers itself to be Poland’s senior partner and therefore feels no obligation to comply with its junior partner’s requests. In fact, it’s actually offensive to Ukraine’s ruling ultra-nationalists to ask that they exhume and properly bury the Volhynia Genocide’s victims since they consider them to be subhumans who deserved to be slaughtered.

From their perspective, they were the descendants of Polish conquerors who colonized eternally Ukrainian lands, so genociding them was justified since they should have left on their own in shame. To even remotely hint that they were victims, let alone to give their remains a proper burial as a Christian gesture, is to question the ultra-nationalist claim of these lands eternally being Ukrainian. From there, it’s easier to question everything about Ukraine’s “national heroes”, especially its World War II-era ones.

Poles are becoming aware of how Ukrainians really view them, and it’s an eye-opener for many that Zelensky and his team disrespected Sikorski’s and his in such a manner during their latest meeting since they expected that Tusk’s Ukrainophilic government would be treated much better. The lesson is that giving Ukraine what it wants never leads to appreciation and respect, but is always taken for granted and seen as a sign of weakness, which reaffirms Ukrainians’ belief in being superior to their benefactors.

As was earlier cited by one of those journalists’ sources, “military and defence issues will not be a bargaining chip” in these disputes over the Volhynia Genocide’s victims and Ukraine’s EU membership, so the fallout will remain limited to the political and soft power realms. Even so, these outcomes are still extremely disadvantageous for Ukraine since they risk turning one of the most supportive populations in the world decisively against them, which could have unforeseen cascading consequences with time.