UKRAINE WILL WIN ITS RENAISSANCE

Piotr Łukasiewicz , former Polish ambassador to Afghanistan, talks to Witold Żygulski

Eleven months ago the security system in Europe, laboriously built after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, fell apart...

The war in Ukraine, which began back in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of fighting in Donbas, was initially treated marginally, as a peripheral conflict happening on the fringes of Europe. Now everything has changed; Russia has emerged as the aggressor, the United States has returned to the European continent both politically and militarily, and Europe itself has been forced to reintroduce armed forces and weapons into its foreign policy. These changes are not over yet, and we do not know their full effects, for it is not clear how the war will end: whether Ukraine will win or there will be some kind of stalemate in which neither side will step down, but neither will be strong enough to gain a military advantage, either.

That will determine what will arise from this change in security architecture, how Europe thinks about a future possible war with Russia, whether such a war is possible, how soon it will happen, and how Russia’s aggression potential will be assessed as a new threat to the continent. The likely differences will be that Eastern Europe will be sure to think that Russia - if it survives the current war in a state resembling victory - is an immediate threat, while Western Europe, more removed from Russian borders, is likely to think that the threat is not so great. This could become a source of future political friction.

Looking at the course of hostilities, what predictions could you try to make about how the Russian aggression might end? I have recently been telling my students to compare current events to World War II, and to think that we are in 1942 today, as Europeans wondering where this war is going and how soon it will end. As we remember, World War II continued for a long time and brought various surprises and major breakthroughs, including in the postwar years. The conflict in Ukraine is very similar, being conducted today on a full, one might say industrial scale. Both warring states have committed their entire potentials to the fight, and the same can increasingly be said of Ukraine’s Western allies. At the moment it is difficult to guess when the war will end and what it will end in. A great deal depends on purely military issues, especially on the Ukrainian side, and on the Russian side on political issues, which seem far more important to the Kremlin, to Vladimir Putin’s team, than the success of the military campaign itself. Whether the Russian dictator retains power, and arguably his life, depends on the political situation, on the West maintaining its unity, on its support for Ukraine, on the effects of the Russia-induced energy crisis. All this poses a threat to Putin, plus there is the domestic situation in Russia, a possible rebellion both by the public and, more importantly, by some group of generals or politicians. For the Kremlin, this is a political war. For Kiev, it is primarily an armed struggle; politically, Ukraine is in a favorable position, it is united, it is successful on the battlefield and receives enormous support from the free world. So it’s hard to predict which of these potentials will prove more important as things develop. There will probably be significant changes on the front in the spring; there is unlikely to be some great offensive, as neither side seems to have the strength for such operations, but a series of single victories on one side or the other is possible, which could have a decisive role for the course of this year’s campaign.

You have said that the Russian president is up against the wall; but in such a situation are any concessions possible, any withdrawal from territories gained through the annexation (after rigged referendums) of four regions of Ukraine, which, according to Russian propaganda, are supposed to “remain in Russia for eternity”?

I believe Putin is capable of taking a step back, as he demonstrated in the case of Kherson, the only major city seized after the Feb. 24, 2022 invasion. When he was talked out of continuing to defend the city, he surrendered it to the advancing Ukrainians. The question is how much longer the Moscow elite and the Russian public (though I don’t know if it has any influence on the dictator’s decisions at all) will accept the narrative of which Putin is a master: portraying failures as successes with the help of a gigantic propaganda apparatus. For the Russian president, the most important thing is to maintain domestic calm, to control the tensions that have emerged in Russia after the outbreak of a full-scale war, still officially described as a “special operation.” How long these “survivalist” skills of his will last him is hard to say. If Russia cedes more territory, loses illegally occupied territories, he may indeed find himself in a situation he has never faced in his more than two decades of rule. I can imagine that the Ukrainians will at least take back the territories that the Russian army seized after Feb. 24 - this must surely cause a reaction domestically. The Russians will ask, “here we are a year and a half after the start of the special operation, we have lost about 150,000 dead and wounded, and what has come of it?”

The Russian government’s propaganda system is doing quite well so far; support for the “special operation” is very high, Putin’s approval rating as a leader is continually enthusiastic. How long can the public of a country of 150 million people be kept in such a state?

A new term was coined recently for leaders of countries that practice authoritarian policies: “spin dictators.” It’s an apt term, showing how the power of propaganda extinguishes real social tensions and allows these leaders to continue riding high. Historical experience shows that one can govern foolishly, erroneously, ruin one’s country economically and still remain in power. We can also feel this way in Poland sometimes. It seems that in the case of Russia, this public attitude, this declarative support for Putin’s war is indeed significant. And even if it is not so in reality, it has little effect on Putin’s position. The Russians simply went to war and that’s it.

In terms of its possible repercussions for Russian society, can the war in Ukraine be compared with the Soviet Union’s failed but nearly decade-long intervention in Afghanistan? Such comparisons obviously spring to mind. Some 15,00020,000 Soviet soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, roughly as many as are killed per quarter on the Ukrainian fronts today. It is often recalled that the social movement of mothers of soldiers killed in Afghanistan led to the end of that war. But first there was Mikhail Gorbachev and his perestroika and glasnost’ [openness]. It wasn’t until later that the mothers of soldiers became socially popular and were allowed to ask military commanders where their sons were. This only came after five or six years of armed involvement in the Afghan conflict, not in 1981 or 1982, when the Soviet Union undertook a full-scale intervention, calling its troops a “limited contingent” anyway. Comparisons are therefore moot; Putin is not Gorbachev, Russia is not the Soviet Union, and Ukraine is not Afghanistan.

In your opinion, do Russian-Ukrainian relations after the war have any chance of normalization? Or are we dealing with hatred that will last for generations?

This is a criminal and cruel war, so the simplest, most obvious answer is that there will be no chance for normal neighborly relations. On the other hand, I am more interested in whether there will be any renaissance of the Ukrainian state and what it will be like. Assuming, of course, that the war ends in a Ukrainian victory, that the West helps Ukraine stay alive and win. Without going any further into what that victory might mean, first and foremost it is about preserving independence, ensuring that the state lasts, not allowing Ukrainians to impose some pro-Russian puppet government, some new Viktor Yanukovych, on themselves.

I think this victory will be visible, there will be no situation of a frozen conflict in which Ukraine wins a little and loses a little, plunges into crisis and bankruptcy. It might be said in jest, although this is no subject for jokes, that this war like no other in the past few decades must end with a great victory parade and an important peace treaty. Not a single war we have experienced in the last 30-40 years has ended with such a treaty. And today I feel that this war should end with such symbolic acts. Of course, such an ending will re- quire the upheaval and collapse of the current Russian government; some people even speculate about the possibility of a breakup of the Russian Federation.

Such a symbolic victory is followed by a social renaissance. I believe that the Ukrainian state will become a symbol of the good it represents today: heroic defense against a criminal invader. I expect this and heartily wish it.

What, then, might the West’s postwar relations with Moscow look like? Could there again be a thaw such as we know from history after the end of the Cold War, or after the violent but short-lived crises that threatened to end in a world war - the Berlin and Cuban crises?

The aforementioned crises ended with changes of power in the Kremlin. The Cuban crisis led to the downfall of Nikita Khrushchev; the Berlin crisis, which led to the construction of the Wall, was the time of the end of the Stalin cult and Khrushchev’s rise to full power. The end of the Cold War, in turn, brought the collapse of the Soviet Union. Always the Russian authorities, the Kremlin, were the losing side. So if there is to be any renegotiation of the West’s relations with Russia, history should repeat itself. I don’t expect the West to back down, I don’t expect the United States to back down from supporting Ukraine. Nor do I think Europe will suddenly run for Russian gas again. The process of economic disconnection from Russian raw material resources is not just related to the war in Ukraine; it was initiated by climate warming and its consequences, namely a shift away from fossil fuels. Russia has found itself in trouble in its economic relations with the West not only because of the war unleashed by Putin. The war has only reinforced other processes that were already evident. Russia is therefore in a state of crisis, while the West is not.

Russia will not become a black hole, it will not disappear, it will have to live somehow with the defeat it will suffer, somehow find its way back into the international community. What I don’t expect is a scenario in which the Russian Federation goes the way of Hitler’s Germany or imperial Japan, performing some kind of catharsis lasting a couple of decades and settling accounts with its imperial past. Such a change of the two aforementioned countries - the aggressors in World War II - resulted from the occupation by the Allies, above all the Americans, and from the efforts of the victorious coalition to change these countries and absorb them into the free, democratic world of the West. Today the Russian imperial spirit will not meet with any external or internal challenge.

How do you assess the West’s attitude toward Kiev today? Isn’t it the case that the Americans are again playing the dominant role while Western Europe is dithering?

Besides Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy of course, President Joe Biden is, without a doubt, the personality of this war. It was a good thing that when the war broke out, there was a politician sitting in the White House who still has experience from the Cold War, who said in Rzeszów during a visit to Poland, visiting American soldiers at the Polish airport through which aid to Ukraine is transported, that he still remembers the talks he held with Soviet Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin in the 1970s. Biden is certainly a pivotal figure in the game of Ukraine’s survival, effectively securing U.S. aid and organizing the Western coalition to support Kiev. An important test of its unity came late last fall, when the issue of whether Europe could withstand an energy embargo on Russian oil, coal and gas arose. The crisis is there, of course, and so is the high price tag, but this is not something that could destroy European support for Ukraine. There are no major elections in Europe or the United States this year in which any pro-Kremlin forces that might upset the Western coalition could surface. So, economically it’s tough but not tragic, and politically it’s also tough, but not bad.

There are even some very positive and somewhat unexpected developments; I note with appreciation Germany’s gradual breakthrough on the issue of aid to Ukraine, another threshold Berlin is crossing. President Biden faces an election in two years; it seems that Ukraine’s heroism is appreciated and accepted by the American political world, so I don’t think anything can threaten the Western coalition for Kiev.

In all of this, what is the role and situation of Poland, which has inevitably become a frontline state over the past 11 months?

Poland’s role, both in terms of the symbolic, declarative layer, as well as in terms of real actions, is very large. Po- land is seen as one of Ukraine’s most active and dedicated allies. In recent weeks top government officials have announced that Poland is ready to transfer state-of-the-art Western weapons to the fighting Ukraine (previously, the Ukrainian army received modernized post-Soviet equipment, including tanks). Warsaw, of course, is acting - quite rightly - as part of a broad Western coalition, not taking any steps on its own.

My doubt relates to another issue: can one build one’s military power on credit, in addition credit that is hard to get? This seems to me to be what the Polish United Right government is doing today. According to a recent analysis published by the Bloomberg economic website, Polish arms spending from off-budget funds raises numerous “red flags,” it is burdened with serious risks, and its maintenance in the future is strongly questioned. I am not an economist, but it seems to me that high-credit purchases are not the best solution in the long run. And armaments are purchases in the long run. Contrary to what various sources, including Russian ones, write, Poland is not a military power yet; all that equipment ordered from all over the world (including the United States and South Korea) has yet to be bought and put into use. Contracts have been signed, but it’s unclear whether it will all hold up.

Added to this are the well-known problems with the rule of law, Polish-German relations, and relations with the European Union. All of this suggests that we may not fully take advantage of this historic opportunity presented by the war in Ukraine and Poland’s role in this international crisis. I would not like us to return to the traditional division between “old” and “new” Europe, Eastern and Western Europe. The current war could, in my opinion, help everyone forget this unfortunate division, which has existed since Poland’s EU accession and, before that, its NATO accession. In military matters this division has already been overcome to some extent, but in political and economic matters it has not. Poland has a chance to become an important player on the map of Europe, and I would very much like to see it take advantage of this. However, so far it is doing nothing to make this happen.

What should and can Poland do?

Finally introduce the rule of law, reform its diplomatic service, be a constructive builder and integral participant in European integration; these are obvious things that should be changed at the very beginning. Of course the EU is a game of interests, but you have to understand what interests you have and what they are. If Poland does not do so, if it vacillates between anti-Americanism and pro-Americanism, between an anti-European stance and a pro-European one, we will never have a stable foreign policy. Speaking of anti-Americanism, I recall the reactions of the Polish authorities to Biden’s election in 2021. A lack of consistency in policy is a very wrong way to go. You can make major adjustments to policies when you are a large, wealthy, militarily secure country. But when you’re still a country on the rise, you can’t afford to make such significant changes.

Are there even minimal chances today for even a partial normalization of Polish-Russian relations?

Absolutely not, there is no question of this. The conflict is ongoing, there is not a single politician in Russia with any chance of assuming real power in the next decade and even a trace of willingness to talk with Warsaw. The situation is the same in Poland; there is no significant politician who wants to improve Polish-Russian relations. We have neither the people, nor the material, nor the ability to normalize them. Russia is an aggressor, it threatens Europe, above all Poland and the Baltic states. It is, excuse the expression, a perverted, criminal superpower that has disrupted security in Central Europe and in fact the whole of Europe in the worst way since 1945. Who are we to reconcile with? Who will be Putin’s successor? [Defense Minister Sergei] Shoigu? [Commander-in-Chief of the Russian army Sergei] Gerasimov? [The founder of the mercenary criminal group Wagner Group, Yevgeny] Prigozhin? [Secretary of the Security Council Nikolai] Patrushev? Or [imprisoned oppositionist Alexei] Navalny? With whom could we hold talks? Today such a situation is completely unimaginable.

Polish-Ukrainian relations today are really flourishing. However, one cannot overlook the fact that the political elite of Kiev or Lviv is showing visible tendencies, painful to Poles, to glorify Ukrainian nationalism, which exploded in a tragic and bloody way during World War II. Isn’t there a danger that slogans like the prewar “Lachy za San” [roughly: “Poles, go back across the San River”] will reappear in the new Ukrainian state that is born after the war is hopefully won?

I am a proponent of the idea that history should be left to historians, and politicians who want to use history for current politics should do so in moderation and, above all, think about the future. This applies to both sides. I think many people find it heartening to see how Poles react to Ukrainians and Ukrainians to Poles today, what an amazing date in our common history 2022 has become, how great Poland’s and Polish people’s aid to Ukrainian refugees has been, how great the military aid is now. I don’t believe in an unambiguous picture of history in which there are only criminals and heroes. I don’t want to justify Ukrainians who worship one politician or another, just as I wouldn’t want to justify Poles doing the same. Poland also has its historical figures who have cast a shadow over the history of Lithuanians, Belarusians, Ukrainians or Jews. Of course, the Volhynia Massacres (1943-1944), crimes bearing the hallmarks of genocide, when 50,00060,000 Poles died at the hands of Ukrainian armed nationalist formations, weigh on Polish-Ukrainian relations. But, as the poet Adam Asnyk wrote, “one must go forward with the living.” I would therefore prefer politicians to behave like President Zelenskiy and President Andrzej Duda are doing today, and also the majority of the political class in both countries.