President Duda: up against war in Ukraine, we must demand a swift change of this shortsighted policy

On Thursday (Jan. 12), at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, President Andrzej Duda and the First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda met with heads of diplomatic mission accredited in Poland. The president stressed it was the first such meeting after a two-year hiatus. "I'm glad we've returned to the practice of direct meetings because I do care about this form of contact and discussion with you," he explained.

"I'd like to thank you for your work in this difficult time for all of us, in the time of the pandemic, and today in the time of war taking place in Ukraine due to Russian aggression," he added.

"Probably not many of you had expected before starting your mission here in Poland that this country would find itself at the forefront of global affairs, and that cities considered remote, like Przemyśl and Rzeszów, would all of a sudden become arrival and departure points for the most important people from your countries," the president said.

"We've become part of history which most likely will determine the shape of Europe, the West, and the whole globe for decades to come, and, who knows, maybe even longer," he added.

He also stressed that "last winter Poland made a strategic decision - in the face of Russian threats against our neighbours Ukraine, we decided we would not remain neutral to acts of aggression". "Me and my associates were driven by two premises. First of all, we thought that Ukraine was able to effetively face Russia as long as it receives weapons and financial aid from the free world, from the West. Secondly, we were certain that if Russia's demands met with concessions on the part of the international community, Moscow would terrorise our part of the continent in its entirety," Duda added.

Furthermore, he said that "Russia's barbaric aggression has forced the world to redefine existing geopolitical arrangements and international security situation". "Another Russian attack on independent Ukraine is a factor which drastically changes the security situation of Europe and our allies," the president said during the meeting with diplomatic corps.

In his opinion, the price of this war is huge for everyone "regardless of geographical location, because at the moment the whole world has to face the consequences of the energy and food crisis caused by Moscow". "Let's face it, the goal of the Kremlin regime is not to end, but exacerbate these crises, to make them ever more severe for the world," he argued.

Citing expert estimates, he said that as many as 70 million people across the world are at risk of hunger. "70 million is more than population of France, nearly twice the population of Poland. We must not turn the blind eye to these facts," he urged.

The president underscored that all those people are at risk of hunger due to Russian aggression and food blackmail. "We must not allow these acts go unpunished and not meet with a reaction of the international community because at stake are lives of millions, often already affected by a very difficult or sometimes dramatic situation."

He also assured that "Poland does not shrink from the responsibility to work out solutions to the aforementioned challenges". "Hence our support for the agreement negotiated under the auspices of U.N. secretary general, and readiness to participate in the transport of Ukrainian grain," he said. "In the long term, however, we must redefine out security policy. The era of the end of history has unfortunately passed," Andrzej Duda added.

In his address, Poland's president also spoke about challenges related to national security. "Investments in the army are investments in the security and stability of Poland, but also of Europe as a whole, and given the size of NATO, we can say of the world too," he argued.

In his opinion, "it's important to understand also by the countries which, despite the decisions taken at the 2014 summit in Wales, still don't spend at least 2% of GDP on defence". "In the face of a full-scale war right next to the eastern border of NATO and EU, we must demand a swift change of this shortsighted policy towards a more united and loyal approach to the allies most at risk," he urged.

He stressed that such cutbacks happen at the expense of "the Lithuanians, Poles, Latvians, Estonians, or Romanians". "As allies, we must not accept it. Allies don't act this way. And I say this on behalf of a country which did not offer Ukraine its old, warehoused weapons, but that used by our own units, taking it away from our own soldiers so that the Ukrainians had something to defend their land and homes with," he explained.

The president also underscored the importance of maintaining allied cooperation with partners like the USA, UK, Bucharest Nine countries, or Baltic states. "Also new important partners emerge on the horizon, such as South Korea - which recently has become our key partner in terms of military, and possibly energy as well. At the same time it goes without saying that NATO is the main guarantee of stability and security in the transatlantic area."

President Duda also expressed hope that - at the next NATO summit in Vilnius - further decisions be made that would tighten transatlantic ties and strengthen the eastern flank of the North Atlantic Alliance. "There is no doubt that if NATO is at risk of invasion, that risk comes from the east. In this context, any discussion on Europe's strategic autonomy, indeed understood as partial loosening of cooperation with the USA, must be considered not only a pipe dream, but also an idea dangerous to a large part of the continent," he said.

Duda also touched upon the question of difficulties in global international relations. In this context, he stressed the importance of justice as a foundation of peace - "including the one that should end the Russian aggression against Ukraine". "Unjust peace always ends in more wars, and yet we all hope that the one happening now and affecting Ukraine so cruelly will be the last one in our lifetimes, the lifetimes of our children, grandchildren, and - God willing - future generations," he said.

In his view, "a just peace would bring back territorial integrity of Ukraine, force Russia to end occupation of parts of Georgia and Moldova, to withdraw troops from Belarus and cease supporting its puppet regime, to quit fueling and inciting conflicts in the Balkans, quit sponsoring mercenaries in African countries and threating th world with hunger". "A just peace is also respecting every nation's right to decide its future," he went on.

The president declared that Poland was a supporter of Ukraine in the NATO, as well as Ukraine, Moldova, Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia in the EU, and of opening to Bosnia and Herzegovina. "I'm certain that the Three Seas Initiative, the Bucharest Nine, the Polish-Ukrainian sense of brotherhood so strongly supported by our friends from the Baltic states, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, as well as the central-European solidarity in the face of war in Ukraine, all create a new identity of our region. We are becoming a family states and nations sharing common history, geography, kinship, as well as language and interpersonal ties formed by common fate," Andrzej Duda said.

He added he was sure that all countries of the region would get involved in reconstruction of Ukraine after the war. "I appeal that we, as a region, as the Three Seas Initiative, work on incorporating Ukraine and Moldova as soon as possible into European transport system, energy grid, and digital network, as well as urgent integration of these countries with the European community," the president urged. He added that plans had been made before the war in Ukraine assuming "Poland pursuing a more global agenda". "I wanted a new opening with countries of Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Indo-Pacific. I also planned business-component-supported trips to the Middle East," he listed. "It's clear that the war has postponed many of these plans, but I don't intend to step away from them. These plans, I believe, will take the rest of my presidency. Poland is a large European country, and its agenda needs to global," he stated.