Poland is finally joining in the scramble for Ukraine after naively sitting on the sidelines all these years.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk was surprisingly candid earlier this month when talking about how Poland plans to profit from Ukraine. In his words, “We will help [Ukraine] – Poland is in solidarity, we are a symbol of solidarity – but never again in a naive way. It won’t be the case that Poland will express solidarity while others profit, for example, on the reconstruction of Ukraine. We will be in solidarity and we will make money on it.” There are important political implications to what he said.
For starters, he’s indirectly lending credence to what outgoing President Andrzej Duda revealed last spring about how foreign companies had already obtained ownership over most of Ukraine’s industrial agriculture. Poland missed the opportunity to participate in the scramble for Ukrainian agriculture due to its naivete in refusing to attach strings to the aid that it donated, which ultimately amounted to more tanks, IFVs, and planes than any other country according to Duda’s official website.
Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz admitted last summer that Poland had by that point maxed out its military support for Ukraine, which preceded Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski proposing that Ukraine could order more military equipment on credit. One way in which bankrupt Ukraine could pay Poland back might be by leasing land and ports to it, which Deputy Minister of Agriculture Michal Kolodziejczak recently suggested, but for free or at a heavy discount in exchange for canceling its debt.
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Just like the latest version of Trump’s mineral deal with Ukraine retroactively counts all donated aid as a loan, so too might Poland consider employing the same tactic in an attempt to make up for its previously mentioned lost opportunity in the scramble for Ukrainian agriculture. That could further worsen already difficult political ties between them caused by the revived Volhynia Genocide dispute, however, but Poland’s ace up its sleeve is that it’s the EU’s and Ukraine’s geo-economic gateway to one another.
If the political will exists, then Poland could complicate their trade across its territory as leverage to this end, including via creative means for plausible deniability purposes like encouraging farmers to once again blockade the border. Poland’s surging exports to Ukraine would be temporarily scaled back, but the greater goal of leasing land and ports there for maximizing profits could be advanced, which would also help Poland in its competition with France and Germany for leadership of post-conflict Europe.
Poland’s Ukraine Reconstruction Service, which readers can learn more about here, could then function more effectively after Polish companies obtain access to the land and ports that Kolodziejczak suggested. This would also enable Poland and Ukraine to speedily implement their economic cooperation goals that were agreed to in last summer’s security pact. Even if Poland acquires more tangible economic stakes and influence in Ukraine, however, it’s unlikely to dispatch peacekeepers or try to revise the border.
The first scenario could result in Poland doing the heavy lifting while its European competitors profit at its expense once again while the second would entail enormous economic, political, and security costs that could also backfire by leading to the total loss of Polish influence in Ukraine. Circling back to what Tusk candidly declared last week, profit considerations will shape Poland’s approach towards Ukraine going forward, not naïve solidarity where it continues sacrificing so much in exchange for nothing at all.
