Why’d The Baltic States Betray Poland At The European Parliament In Defense Of The UPA?

Many of their own “national heroes” are also Nazi collaborators so they’re sensitive to any criticism of Zelensky for glorifying his country’s own such “heroes”.

Polish foreign policy hitherto took for granted the political reliability of the Baltic States, all of which used to be part of the Commonwealth for various lengths of time, the southern half of Estonia having the shortest at just six decades while Lithuania has the longest since it was united with Poland from 1386-1795. It therefore expected that they’d back the proposal at the European Parliament initiated by Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s “European People’s Party” criticizing Zelensky’s glorification of the OUN-UPA.

According to Deputy Marshal of the Sejm Krzysztof Bosak, who’s also Chairman of the National Movement half of the Confederation opposition party whose representatives serve at the European Parliament, “the Baltic states, and above all Lithuania, played most strongly against the Polish initiative… This is yet another manifestation of the bursting of illusions and the failure of Polish Eastern policy. The Balts are more willing to play with Ukraine than with Poland.”

Bosak posted that in affirmation of what top Polish expert Sławomir Dębski wrote about how “the lead (in blocking Poland’s initiative) was taken by MEPs from Lithuania, supported by their colleagues from Latvia and Estonia.” He elaborated in the comments that “Opening a discussion at the European level about collaboration, e.g., with Ypatingasis būrys and the Nazis—and that’s what the UPA issue threatens—doesn’t serve their interests”.

Dębski concluded that “it’s worth noting their readiness to pay the price for defending the UPA in the realm of relations with Poland. Of course, the cost may seem minor, but considering that Poland’s position determines whether the West will provide aid to the B3 in a serious crisis, we may be dealing with an underestimation of the consequences.” His commentary on this matter contains three important points, the first being that many of the Baltic States’ “national heroes” collaborated with the Nazis.

They therefore felt compelled to push back against criticism of Zelensky for glorifying his own country’s Nazi-collaborating “heroes” in order to preemptively defend themselves for doing the same thing. The second point is that the Baltic States thus took Ukraine’s side over Poland’s, which suggests that they’d be receptive to Zelensky’s proposal to deploy Ukrainian troops to their countries for replacing any of the US’ that might be withdrawn. This is part of Kiev’s plot to outflank Poland as recently explained here.

And finally, the following hyperlinked analysis explains why “Poland Would Be The Baltic States’ Best Security Guarantor In NATO 3.0” instead of Ukraine or any Western European country, mostly because of what Dębski implied about how Poland controls the only overland route for NATO to defend the Baltics. Poland must therefore remind the Baltic States of this, beat Ukraine in their rivalry for influence over them, and thus ensure that Poland doesn’t become geostrategically irrelevant after the conflict ends.

As it stands, it’ll be an uphill battle since the Baltic States lionize Ukraine for waging war against their shared Russian foe, not to mention its similar state-level glorification of Nazi collaborators. By contrast, Poland is only indirectly waging war against Russia and is now opposed to the glorification of such “national heroes”, but it turns a blind eye to Lithuania’s glorification of its Nazi collaborators that massacred Poles. A radical change in Poland’s Eastern policy is therefore required if it’s to succeed.