I feel that the war in Ukraine is coming to an end. Since in the media, in which so far it has been written almost exclusively about Ukrainian successes and Russian losses, Russian plans to divide Ukraine into 3 parts are taken seriously. According to these plans, the first part is to be annexed to Russia. The second part is Ukrainian Ukraine or let's say that Ukraine is the right one. In turn, the 3rd part is to be managed by Poland and Hungary. Whether this task is simply a political utopia or not, it's hard to decide now. I think for the Russians it is within the limits of rational political thinking.
For Russians, specified a division of Ukraine has 2 main aspects. The first has a geopolitical dimension. It undermines the American concept, which is written by Zbigniew Brzeziński. The point is that according to Brzeziński without Ukraine, Russia is incapable to rebuild its imperial position, so maintaining Ukraine's independency (independence from Russia is to be understood) and its territorial integrity, Russia remains a secondary power. Inheriting to Russia the east Ukraine and subjecting itself to the right Ukraine, Russia has the warrant that Ukraine ceases to be a country from which it can inactive be threatened. The second aspect is that if Poles and Hungarians decided to "govern" Western Ukraine, then the Russians have partners in this division, and surely besides partition. These associates are doomed to cooperate with Russia if Ukrainians want to reunite the territories that are their state today.
One must consider whether there is any Polish national interest in specified a variant. I don't think there's one. On the contrary. The desire to participate in the division of Ukraine is even dangerous for the Polish national interest. 2 unequal forces are playing today. The first is like a swarming cloud of emotions, sentiments and historical events. For this force there is no question of dividing Ukraine. There is simply a return to the lost Kresy, and above all, the recovery of the beloved Lviv. This force treats the annexation of the territories of the first and second Republics, now part of Ukraine, as a form of historical justice. This force has the potential, as large as the emotions in politics are powerful, especially in Polish politics. I'm afraid it's going to be easy to stir the temper here. The PiS candidate for president is already shouting the slogans about “Great Poland” and I am convinced that “the Polishness of Lviv and the Borders” will shortly be dumped – precisely so – in between political battles and clashes. The climate is created by Ukrainians themselves, leading the policy of blurring and destroying Polish heritage in those areas.
The second strength is like a powerful boulder, which needs to be raised and cut to the form of even a small closer to the present – how imperfect – Polish state. This force is simply a cool, rational reflection on what it would be like to join Poland. Poland as a depopulated country with weak state structures, politically dependent on strangers, even more dependent on these aliens economically, is to join even more economically backward areas, mentally all the time secularized, devoured by organized and unorganized crime, which is the centre of flagism, or Ukrainian chauvinism, whose constitutional component is hatred of everything Polish.
Indeed, it is simply a powerful boulder, whose current form of Polish statehood is not only incapable to cut off, but it is more likely that this boulder will mostly paralyse and not only fewer efficient administrative structures. 1 should anticipate any form of a bander partisan who will spill across Poland.
How do you get money to adjust those infrastructurally delayed areas? After all, there is immense money involved. There are hundreds of specified problems, if not thousands. But what is this cool thought in dealing with a hot cloud of emotion, sentiment and longing?
Andrzej Szlezak
