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“During the early months of the war, Zelenskyy tried to get Poland to enter the conflict, possibly by creating a single state, Polish opposition leader Jarosław Kaczyński claimed.”
Speaking at a youth forum in Augustów, the leader of the Polish opposition party Law and Justice Jarosław Kaczyński reflected on the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and during the speech, he claimed Ukrainian officials initially urged Warsaw to take steps Poland could not accept.
“There were often all sorts of issues related to whether to do something or not,” Kaczyński said, according to Rzeczpospolita. He noted that Warsaw refused certain demands for reasons he could not discuss.
Relations later changed. Still, Kaczyński argued that Kyiv initially held a strange goal.
He alleged that Ukrainian leaders wanted to draw Poland directly into the war, even by forming a single state.
“Later, things began to develop completely differently, but it must be clearly stated that the Ukrainians have changed their minds. I think they initially had a somewhat strange idea that they would drag us into this war, even on the basis of creating a single state,” Kaczyński said.
It is unclear what Kaczyński was referring to when talking about a “single state”. He pointed to Volodymyr Zelensky’s address to Poland’s parliament as evidence.
Misjudged strength
Kaczyński claimed that Ukrainian officials significantly miscalculated Poland’s military capacity in early 2022. Despite its reputation across the region, he insisted Poland lacked the actual armed strength required to join the fight directly.
“Poland, even if it were a very belligerent country, had practically no real armed forces,” Kaczyński said. He stated that Warsaw could not enter the conflict, even if Kyiv believed otherwise.
He added that Ukrainian calculations likely relied on Poland’s NATO membership to involve the alliance. Outside of military support, Kaczyński noted that Poland also participated in early peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow in spring 2022.
Early dangerous journey
Despite these early friction points, Kaczyński personally demonstrated physical support on the ground. Less than three weeks into the invasion, he joined a small diplomatic group traveling by train into war-torn Ukraine.
Alongside the then Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and the leaders of Slovenia and the Czech Republic, Kaczyński reached Kyiv on March 15, 2022. The journey took place while Russian forces bombarded the surrounding region.
During talks with Zelensky in Kyiv, Kaczyński advocated for an international NATO peacekeeping mission. Even so, he believes historians will ultimately decide what drove the complex political calculations made during those initial weeks.
Support and crisis
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is repeatedly warning Europe about the risk of Russia expanding the war in Ukraine to involve NATO countries.
Earlier this month, he addressed the Polish parliament, where he warned that Russia is actively planning hybrid drone and missile strikes against NATO countries supporting Ukraine, including Poland.
The large European country has been one of the most critical supporters of Ukraine during the more than four years of war, but there have also been tensions between Kyiv and Warsaw.
This year, a full-blown diplomatic crisis erupted when the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy granted the honorary title “Heroes of the UPA” to a Special Operations unit. The UPA refers to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, and this is what triggered the crisis.
In Poland, the UPA is held responsible for the Volhynia massacres in 1943–1945, which claimed over 100,000 Polish civilian lives.
