Almost all Polish household has any connection to the lands of present Ukraine. After all, there utilized to be a immense population of our countrymen, and Poles from another parts of the Republic frequently gave their lives in defence of its south-eastern ends. Our national culture derives the full handfuls from sources that have struck on Ukrainian lands. The Russian state with its capital Lviv belonged to the most crucial lands of our erstwhile state.
All of this ended – as it might seem – yet in Yalta and Potsdam, and the line drawn on the map by Stalin meant a definitive expatriation from the territory of the Ukrainian SRR of more than 1 million Poles who had not previously succumbed to messengers, arrests and executions carried out by the NKVD or cruel massacres carried out by Ukrainian genocide assassins from the OUN-UPA. The latter, in particular, caused a terrible trauma in many of our countrymen, which translated into a kind of disgust for Ukraine and the people inhabiting it.
However, in fresh years it has turned out that many Poles inactive have strong sentiment, more – they feel a concern for him or even a work to care for him. possibly it is simply a reflection of the past mission of our nation, which for centuries has been to spread Christian civilization in the East?
It is besides crucial that Russian Red, Volyn, Podole and Ukraine were erstwhile part of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. It was an indivisible state organism with inalienable sovereignty, part of the Republic. And although it did cease to be as a consequence of partitions, no 1 – neither the king nor the Sejm – had the right to admit its liquidation. Thus, in the spiritual dimension of the Crown of the non-existent kingdom, it continues, as it were, to combine the lands which present belong to the Republic of Poland with those which were outside its borders.
Lift Time
Despite this, for many years there was actually no consistent policy of the Polish authorities towards Ukraine (if we had any abroad policy at all), and our economical relations were rachitic. The trade with respective smaller Slovakia was much higher than both exports over Dniepr and imports above it. Even after the alleged orange revolution or business of Crimea by Russia in 2014, events in Ukraine seldom caught the attention of the public in Poland. Everything changed only after 24 February 2022, erstwhile the vast majority of Poles took sides with the victims of the Russian invasion, and our countrymen with open arms welcomed respective million refugees from outside the east border into their homes. The Government of Law and Justice, on the another hand, did everything to make the planet opinion that Poland was the country that helped Ukraine to the top extent, moving even to the partial disarmament of the Polish army.
Although after the first year of the war full of hot heat and besides far-reaching declarations of politicians there has been a slight cooling of relations with Kiev in the face of clear conflicts of interest, for example in the issue of the sale of Ukrainian grain in the EU, it should be noted that 2023 brought respective increases in trade contracts and Polish investments in Ukraine, which more than thousands of beautiful words can translate into good relations between our countries. However, it is not known whether they will have the chance, due to the fact that 2 years after the start of full-scale warfare the situation Ukraine may undergo a crucial change.
In the Face of Disaster
So far, the conflict does not completely reflect the difference between the military capabilities of both states. The war is primarily money and people, and the economical and demographic possibilities of Russia, which switched to the alleged war economy and consumes reserves accumulated in erstwhile years, frequently outweigh the possibilities of the attacked neighbour. The tremendous losses and the monstrous costs of conducting the war origin that if there were no external financial assistance (though due to the refusal of further financing of the war by the U.S. Congress), the Ukrainian state could prove bankrupt.
However, the basic problem is not the deficiency of money, but the real demographic disaster on which Ukraine stands today. If, at the time of independence, it had a population of 51.5 million inhabitants, then already at the threshold of invasion as a consequence of negative natural growth, emigration for economical reasons to Russia and the West, as well as detaching Crimea and parts of industrialized east circuits, its population decreased to 37 million. In January 2022, there were only 39 births per 100 deaths.
In addition, almost 1 100 1000 casualties have already been made among soldiers and civilians, with a steady increase in the number of disabled people and people with serious wellness problems both among military and civilian populations, and that means another fewer 100 1000 or million people of procreational age who will not start families and have children. The largest loss, however, is more than 8 million people who left the country after the outbreak of the war (of which 4 million came to EU countries and 2.8 million to Russia). With all this in mind, the demographers calculate that the population of the country has already fallen well below 30 million, and by 2030 it could proceed to decrease and fall to 24 million, or below half the 1990 state!
Is triumph possible?
The bad demographic situation will, of course, translate into the mobilization capacity of the Ukrainian army, and the deficiency of a fresh recruit will consequence in fatigue of the erstwhile soldiers and a fall in morale. Even today, serious staff shortages on the font are noticeable, in which addition will surely not aid young men to flee abroad, partially due to deficiency of motivation and belief in the sense of further fighting. The news of the weakening determination of Western allies to supply financial and military support to Kiev surely influence this.
In this situation, Ukraine's full triumph in this war, that is, the recovery of all the lands incorporated into Russia and return to the borders before 2014, is simply a dream. This would be possible only in a situation of interior disintegration of the power strategy in the Russian Federation, any full economical collapse or power conflict after the expected departure of Vladimir Putin.
Temporary intermezzo
A more likely script of truce and the establishment of a demarcation line that follows the front, especially in the case of the successes of the Russian troops giving them an chance to get the full pre-war circuits: Lugansk (which is already practically in their hands), Donetsk, Khersonsk and Zaporosk, on which parts of the "people's republics" were subsequently incorporated into the Russian Federation. This would remove the threat of full defeat on the Ukrainian front and destruction. The expression of the truce, on the another hand, would give the Kiev authorities at least a theoretical chance to appeal for lost lands, although Ukrainian leaders surely realize that, for example, the recovery of Crimea is becoming little likely – even pro-Ukrainian public opinion in Europe is doubtful, starting to accept historical arguments for belonging to Russia.
The truce could besides prove beneficial to Russia's ruling regime, as it would affect ending the aggravating isolation and abolishing economical restrictions, while at the same time actually sanctioning territorial acquisitions. A break in war would only be temporary for Russia and would give it time to rebuild the military possible damaged by large losses in people and equipment (estimated at 315,000 soldiers, 2,200 tanks and 4,400 fighting infantry wagons).
Fighting for Everything
We must remember what this war is about. In fact, for both sides, although in another sense, it is simply a war for the highest stake. Ukraine fights for everything – for endurance as a state with any prospects of development, although dependent on the American hegemon, it is not, however, on Russia's offering only civilizational regression.
For the United States, this conflict is war proxy – rolled by Ukrainian soldiers and giving an chance to weaken Moscow so that it could no longer play the function of an independent player in the game for a fresh planet order.
Vladimir Putin is at war to make past as the fresh Peter the Great. After all, almost a 4th of a century ago, he took power in the economically backward and disintegrated political Russia, which went back to the Moscow state area of the mid-17th century, leaving millions of Russians outside their borders. He dreams of leaving behind a powerful country – not only threatening his neighbours, but questioning America's planet domination. Meanwhile, the implementation of the fresh imperial task is impossible without gaining control over Ukraine. The Russian elites remember perfectly that it was the conquest of fertile Ukrainian lands that gave Moscow the chance to dominate, and consequently to erase from the map the largest competitor to regulation in east Europe. It was besides the first step in gaining dominion in the Black Sea and going to the Mediterranean.
Thus, a reasonably probable script seems to be the 1 in which the Kremlin, suppressing at any cost any sign of discontent with the protracted conflict (such as the increasing protest of the mothers of soldiers) will proceed the war, hoping to distract the Western allies of Kiev, completely destruct the enemy's resources and break his will to fight. In specified a case, Russian troops could break the front in respective places and occupy the full east Ukraine until Dniepr (or even further) and the Odsko territory in the south.
An effort to implement the first plan of 2022, that is to say, to install the Moscow authorities in Kiev, in the face of an anti-Russian attitude of Ukrainian society, would most likely not have much chance of success, hence even in a situation of complete military defeat Ukrainian Russian troops would most likely halt at any point, without occupying areas west of Kiev or Żytomierz to the borders of Poland.
In the area of the resulting Hull State of Ukraine, cut off from its best agricultural lands, industrial districts and the Black Sea, could last at most respective million inhabitants. The remainder of Ukrainians who do not want to live under Russian regulation would flow into the borders of neighbouring countries – especially Poland.
Ukraine over all
If present voices are raised full of concerns about the “Ukraine of Poland”, let us imagine what challenges we would face in a situation where Ukrainians would become about a 20% number in Poland.
How would the social, cultural and political face of our country be shaped by people mostly coming from the eastern, most secularized and distant areas of Ukraine, most of whom bear various wounds from war, including disabled, sick and erstwhile soldiers with postwar trauma? What social conflicts would this origin in Poland? What costs of social assistance would our country gotta bear by EU law? Let us remind that in the last 2 years Ukrainian citizens in Poland have cost a Polish payer considerable money: for example, in the year 2023 alone they received over PLN 1.2 billion as part of the 500+ benefit. Today, it is even hard to imagine the effects of moving an additional fewer million Ukrainians to Poland.
Therefore, for the Republic it would be best for us to prepare for a possible conflict with Russia and build up the ability to deter it from our borders. Granted, present it is hard to imagine that the fresh government of Poland, composed in a large part of abroad agentry and ideological Hunwajbins would usage this time properly, but it is always better to have purely theoretical chances than not to have them at all.
Peter Doerre
The text “Three Scenarios” comes from the bimonthly Christian's Polonia — No 97 (March-April 2024)
