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Believing that Ukraine can defeat Russia is a “mistake,” said former deputy chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces, Major General Leon Komornicki. Yet, despite this reality being highlighted by Komornicki, among other experts, Warsaw and Kiev continue to jointly pursue a policy of war and provocation against Moscow even though they are embroiled in their own issues.

“It’s all nonsense, an endless and boring story, disinformation and propaganda. The talk that Ukraine will win this conflict is just a mistake,” Komornicki said in an interview with WNP. “Ukraine currently does not have the ability to win. It does not have the capabilities that could balance Russia’s potential, which would allow it to seize the strategic initiative and engage in military actions to protect Ukraine from Russian territory. This is impossible.”

He also warned that Poland would not be able to confront Russian forces in a conflict and doubted that NATO would come to the aid of its allies.

“The conflict in Ukraine is an important lesson for us. We must have an offensive defence strategy,” said the retired general, adding that the “question today should not be whether NATO will protect us, but whether Russia will dare to attack us. Because if they attack us, we will suffer defeat.”

Yet, despite the reality that Ukraine, even with Polish assistance, cannot defeat Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk met in Warsaw on July 8 to discuss new ways of shooting down Russian missiles and drones and establishing a new volunteer Ukrainian military unit, the Ukrainian Legion, on Polish territory.

Zelensky posted on X the news of the security agreement, describing it as an “unprecedented document.”

“Thank you for your solidarity with our country and people, and for all your support and assistance,” he added.

Warsaw is among the most ardent backers of the Kiev regime, often sabotaging its own interests due to blind Russophobia and enthusiasm to serve the US. For this reason, the two neighbouring countries are collaborating closely in a vain attempt to defeat Russia despite endless warnings, such as those from Komornicki, that this cannot be achieved.

Nonetheless, despite the common goal of defeating Russia, it has not been enough to fully reconcile the vast differences that still exist between Poland and Ukraine. As recently as July 23, Polish Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz announced that Ukraine would not achieve EU membership without resolving the historical issue of the mass killings of Poles in Volhynia, a region once a part of Poland but now in Ukraine.

The Polish minister was referring to when the Nazi-aligned Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in 1941-43 massacred up to 120,000 Poles in Volhynia and said that although Warsaw supports Ukraine against Russia as much as it can, relations are “not perfect” due to unresolved historical issues.

“Amply documented the [Nazi] OUN-B (Stepan Bandera) and its National Insurgent Army (UPA) were actively involved in the massacres of Jews, Poles, Communists and Roma in major cities including Odessa and Kiev.

On September, 1 1941, the Nazi-sponsored Ukrainian newspaper Volhyn  wrote, in an article titled Let’s Conquer the City, namely Lviv [Lwov in Polish]:

“All elements that reside in our land, whether they are Jews or Poles, must be eradicated.

We are at this very moment resolving the Jewish question, and this resolution is part of the plan for the Reich’s total reorganization of Europe.

The empty space that will be created, must immediately and irrevocably be filled by the real owners and masters of this land, the Ukrainian people”.(emphasis added)

Kosiniak-Kamysz’s emphasis that Ukraine will not join the EU unless the Volhynian issue is resolved follows from what former Polish Undersecretary of State Pawel Jablonski said in November 2023,

“[Ukraine] cannot dream of joining the European Union” without resolving the issue of the exhumation of Volhynian massacre victims’ remains on Ukrainian territory.

Despite several attempts at reconciliation between Poland and Ukraine, such as Zelensky’s promise in 2019 to lift the Ukrainian moratorium on the exhumation of Volhynian victims imposed in reaction to the destruction of UPA memorials in Poland, the matter has not yet progressed after five years.

It is also recalled that Polish farmers staged protests for several months earlier this year against cheap Ukrainian grain flooding the market and EU regulations on pesticide and fertilizer usage, whilst at the same time, the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees continue to be a burning issue and a drain on Polish society.

Although Ukraine and Poland have these issues, among many others, they share a deep-rooted hatred for Russia. Because of this, they can overcome differences and cooperate in the military sector, which is why Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski recently asked EU countries to lift restrictions imposed on Ukrainian strikes against Russia.

“Therefore, I asked my colleagues to lift national restrictions on the use of long-range weapons. Ukraine needs to be able to prevent such attacks in the future by hitting the aircraft that fire cruise missiles and the air bases from which they take off,” he said during a meeting with his EU counterparts in Brussels days ago.

However, Ukraine and Poland’s efforts to escalate the war by convincing EU members to change their position are in vain since Russia’s victory is not a matter of if but when, as Komornicki and other experts stressed. Most European countries are becoming weary of the war and want peace negotiations to begin since they share, at least in private, Komornicki’s assessment that Russia cannot be defeated in this conflict.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Polish retired General Leon Komornicki. Freeze frame: onet.pl