Putin said this during a meeting with historians and representatives of traditional religions in Russia. Text version of his speech published on the Kremlin website.
“We have always treated and treated Poland with great respect. This is our neighbor. We have had moments where we had very close relations, there were problems,” Putin said. Poland is a large “sea-to-sea” state. Before the Second World War, a lot was said about this. It was a fixed idea – from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. Now we see the hugs of the leaders of Poland and Ukraine, but the idea is alive. And the idea of Ukrainian absorption: it went nowhere. But hardly anyone knows. It’s only in archival documents. “
After the start large-scale invasion of the Russian Federation in Ukraine Poland received millions of Ukrainians and, as President Volodymyr Zelensky said, he goes out of his way to make them feel not like refugees there, but “at home”. Poland too supplies military to Ukraine Help.
Zelensky noted that in the history of relations between Ukraine and Poland developed a special relationship and against the background of the unification of countries “historical questions seem insignificant”.
On May 3, Polish President Andrzej Duda said that although history between countries is “difficult”, now “bread is being put on the common table of Ukrainians and Poles” instead of weapons. He stated that he was starting a new phase in the history of relations and also expressed the hope that Ukraine and Poland they will be brotherly countries for decades and centuries, and between them “there will be no more borders”.
Subsequently, the representatives of the Russian authorities began to talk about the “threat” to Ukraine from Poland. Thus, at the beginning of May, the “threat” to the territorial integrity of Ukraine from Poland was seen by the press secretary of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Peskov, and by the former president of Russia, vice-president of the Security Council. of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev.
Advisor to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Mykhailo Podolyak then responded “not all are barbarians like Russia”. “The civilized world works differently. Poland is a great friend, ally and partner of Ukraine. Warsaw does not stick a knife in the back, like Russia, but lends a hand,” he stressed.
Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, speaking on May 31 in Kazan at a meeting on national security, noted that “a number of states” are working on the “dismemberment” of Ukraine and Poland “already going into action to seize the territories of western Ukraine. “Podolyak called hallucinations Patrushev’s statement.
