How anti-Ukrainian sentiments push Poland back under Russia's colonial boot

Poles are pushing themselves under the Russian boot. Perhaps they miss Moscow’s rule, from which Lech Wałęsa, together with Ronald Reagan, freed them more than thirty years ago.

It seems Poles have grown tired of democracy, prosperity and holidays in Croatia. Once again, they dream of turning Poland into a Russian kolkhoz, a land of poverty and backwardness, a western province of Stalin’s empire.

Polish musician, satirist, and essayist Krzysztof Skiba warns that anti-Ukrainian sentiments (indeed, the fashionable attacks on Ukraine) are driving Poles each day closer to Putin’s jaws, "full of Soviet dung." Read more in his column Back under the Russian boot: where is anti-Ukrainian 'hype' leading Poland.

The author notes that currently at the peak of popularity in Poland is the "stupid, absurd and suicidal vilification of everything Ukrainian."

"The Russians have suddenly become saints and beloved. Meanwhile, only Ukrainians are bad. We are obsessed with Bandera, while somehow forgetting about the Red Army that raped Polish women," marvels Skiba.

He admits that memory can be manipulated and Russians in Poland do it brilliantly. "Of course, there is no symmetry in these old tragedies, since ethnic cleansing was initiated by Ukrainians. But after commemorating the victims, one must wisely accept the fact that today Ukraine is our ally," the Polish satirist emphasises.

Skiba reminds readers that Ukraine is bleeding but fighting back against Putin, holding effective resistance for three years now.

"The priority of our foreign policy should be helping Ukraine and lobbying for its NATO membership. This was, by the way, the will of President Lech Kaczyński, though no one seems to mention it today," he writes.

Paradoxically, adds Skiba, NATO has become stronger because of the war, while Poland’s economy has grown thanks to Ukrainian war refugees.

In his view, Poles as a nation now behave like "blind cats in a sack." Russian propaganda, trolls, and such notorious liars as Sławomir Mentzen (leader of the anti-Ukrainian Confederation party) or Grzegorz Braun have "made a total mess of your heads."

"The worst thing is that anti-Ukrainian sentiments fueled by Putin’s propaganda affect not only President Nawrocki (who stripped Ukrainian women of ‘800+’ benefits and cut funding for Starlink for Ukraine’s Armed Forces, thus hurting the army fighting Putin), but also Tusk’s government," Skiba notes.

He considers only two figures in that government to "still have balls and brains": Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek and Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski: "They know that pandering to the right-wing party will lead nowhere."

Skiba argues that Poland’s new president, Karol Nawrocki, turned out to be "a fan of political stunts," pretending to be a knockoff Trump, thus drifting toward Putin by riding the wave of openly anti-Ukrainian moods.

The intellectual reminds readers that it is Russian saboteurs who set fire to Polish shopping centers, firms, and warehouses (and this has already been proven), yet in stadiums one still sees not anti-Russian but anti-Ukrainian slogans."Every Russian who dies with a weapon in hand in Ukraine will never set foot on Polish soil. Every tank destroyed by Ukrainians, every drone, every sunken ship will never attack Poland.

We owe Ukrainians thanks for this. But instead, we 'thank' them with deportations, insults, and daily hatred," he stresses.

He warns: Poles are pushing themselves under the Russian boot. And those who, ten years from now, will be standing in line with ration cards for Russian sugar will never forgive you.