The anniversary of the Smolensk disaster for any is simply a mystical experience, for others a scandal, and for others a sad event testifying to our failure as a nation ordering the issue of Central Europe. This time I will leave out any comments on the causes and possible causes of this disaster, and I will deal with a broader political background.
What was the game about in our part of Europe in the early 21st century? Putin's Russia wanted and wants to reconstruct its importance and the area of influence to the state as close as possible to before the collapse of the USSR. These actions have found large knowing especially in Germany, ready to go on broad cooperation, mainly in the economical sphere. And everything would have gone smoothly if it had not been for the opposition of the Kaczyński brothers, who just, in 2005, took the lead in Poland.
Immediately after the election of Lech Kaczyński as president, Russian media announced that he wanted to format relations with Russia according to his own views and set conditions for president Putin. Then, in relations with Russia, it was even worse, and in an anniversary message by Jarosław Kaczyński yesterday, he assessed those, his and his brother, the objectives of politics towards Russia: “There was besides another aspect of the politics of the late Lech Kaczyński. This aspect was an attempt, on the 1 hand, to weaken our most dangerous opponent, Russia, through various types of constructions, in peculiar in the energy sphere. The point was to environment Russia, in a way, so that it could not terrorize with just this energy weapon, but besides that it simply had little money to defend and build its strength and aggression. And he truly did it with quite a few efficiency. He has besides done this in 1 more way, trying to consolidate our part of Europe."
It may seem to individual that this is, from Jarosław Kaczyński's side, an effort to assign, post factum, the excessive importance of his brother's policy, and yet seen in the current context.
However, the best test of the reality of today's assessment of Jarosław Kaczyński is how president Kaczyński himself reacted to those actions of Vladimir Putin.
Well, there is simply a publishing home in Russia called WWP, which is formally engaged in economics (WWP means GNP- a gross national product), but in fact it was engaged in presenting and popularizing Putin's policies and people (WWP are besides his initials). And it wasn't any publishing home that many, but the editorial committee was the closest of Putin's colleagues, like Minister Lawrow.
The second issue of this 2008 WWP includes a discussion of Prime Minister Tusk's visit to the Kremlin in January of this year. And there it was assessed that Poland, to take over by Tusk, was the “most problematic partner of Russia” among the European countries, which “not only did Poland not search to become closer to Moscow, but it besides interfered in all possible way in our country's cooperation with the EU. We are talking about Poland's veto on consultations on a fresh partnership agreement between Russia and the EU, and about the accession of [Russia] to the OECD."
The actions of Tusk and PO were further appreciated to improve relations between Moscow and Warsaw, and it was stated that "the main origin of their fast deterioration in 2 years – the destructive position of the tandem Kaczyński brothers – although not completely eliminated, was importantly weakened".
This Russian assessment from the beginning of 2008 confirms what a thorn the Kaczyński brothers' policy was for Russia, and how they would ‘to destruct them’. A fewer days after this visit, Tusk in Moscow, Putin and Medvedev went to Bulgaria where a number of very crucial agreements on strategical economical cooperation were concluded. Then Putin was expected to confide to his Bulgarian partners that Kaczynskis wage war against Russia.
All this confirms that today's evaluation of the president of the Law and Justice Party's importance to Russia is correct and their role, especially Lech, has not been unduly exposed here.
In this context, the question of what an empire can do, any empire, erstwhile it finds that individual is waged any kind of war against it and, although weakened, it has not yet been completely eliminated, I leave everyone to evaluate. The policy of the mediate State, which is besides Poland, against the power, is simply a very hard game, and erstwhile it comes to Russia, it becomes highly hard and dangerous.
Stanisław Lewicki
