The Russian vision of a world order based on force, could backfire.

Ukraine’s resistance to Putin’s invasion has demolished the idea of Russian invincibility. Everyone knows Russia is not the unbeatable empire Moscow was at pains to portray itself as both outwardly and inwardly. And just as Russia is trying to claim Ukraine as its own, other countries are eyeing chunks of Russian land, spotting an opportunity as the war shows just how weak the Russian army is. Nations within Russia are waiting for the right time to oust the bully. The Kremlin should be wary of promoting a world where it is acceptable to seize territories through force; it only invites others to join in and claim parts of Russia for themselves.

Japan was the first country to break its silence after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. Tokyo said of the Kuril Islands that it was “completely unacceptable that the Northern Territories have yet to be returned since the Soviet Union’s illegal occupation of them 77 years ago”. That annexation saw the expulsion of Japanese people from the southern islands, and since then, the countries have failed to reach a compromise. Talks broke down when Putin showed he was not willing to share lands but only to gain new ones. 

Then China started drawing maps marking part of Siberia and the Russian Far East region as originally Chinese. Great areas of Chinese land were annexed by Russia in the 19th century. Unable to claim this territory back in a peaceful way, Beijing has pursued economic expansion around Baikal and has been actively purchasing and leasing lands near the border. 

In Poland, there are narratives suggesting that Russia occupied the Kaliningrad region in 1945, and that Warsaw has the right to claim it. Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and even Ukraine could also stake interests in vying for Russian lands. Russian fighters infiltrating the Belgorod region under the Ukrainian flag served as a reminder to Putin that others could also reclaim their “primordial territories”. Kyiv aims to restore its 1991 borders and end the war. Yet the prospect of exiled Russians on tanks turning Russian border regions into “national republics” is seen as a welcomed payback for Moscow’s deeds in the Donbas.

As Moscow pursues the expansion of its European borders, national autonomies in Russia and their exiled leaders envision the decolonization of Russia, dreaming of dividing it into 34 independent states. For now, national liberation movements are absent due to oppression and persecution within Russia. When the Soviet Union fell apart, several regions of Russia declared their state sovereignty but were silenced. These regions have constitutions stating their sovereignty as separate states, with power-sharing treaties governing their relationship with Moscow. These norms are “dormant”, but they can be activated as soon as the regime demonstrates its inability to keep the empire under control. 

Read the rest here.

Polish Courts Defy European Union Sparking Speculation Over Its Future

Poland's membership of the EU was plunged into uncertainty on Wednesday after its judges defied a European court order to reverse some of its controversial judicial reforms.

Stanisław Piotrowicz, a senior Polish judge, said that interim measures by the EU’s highest court, which ordered Warsaw to suspend the reforms, were “not in line” with the Polish constitution.

The defiant ruling is the first of two verdicts due to be issued this week by Polish judges which appear to question a fundamental requirement of EU membership: that EU law takes precedence over national laws.

The ruling prompted Guy Verhofstadt, a prominent MEP and former chief Brexit coordinator, to warn that Poland’s eurosceptic government was trying to drag the country out of the bloc.

“Against the wishes of the vast majority of Polish people who want an EU future, the populist governing PiS [Law and Justice] party is determined to take Poland out of the EU,” he wrote on Twitter.

“Will anyone act to stop them before it is too late?” he added, and claimed that the rule of law in Poland was breaking down.  

The Polish ruling came after the European Court of Justice [ECJ] issued an interim order for Warsaw to suspend its “disciplinary chamber” of the Supreme Court, which was part of measures to overhaul the Polish legal system.

Under the Polish reforms, which came into effect in February 2020, the disciplinary chamber has powers to strip judges of immunity and cut their salaries. The reforms also prevent judges from referring certain points of law to the ECJ.

Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party, a right-wing populist and eurosceptic movement, has clashed with Brussels for years over the hugely contentious reforms.

Read the rest here. (paywall)

Amidst Russian Provocations a Nervous Poland Encourages Its Children to Play Soldier

KALISZ, Poland — For evidence of how much President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has jangled nerves and provoked anxiety across Eastern Europe, look no farther than the drill held the other day by the Shooters Association.

The paramilitary group, like more than 100 others in Poland, has experienced a sharp spike in membership since Mr. Putin’s forces began meddling in neighboring Ukraine last year.

Thirty students took an oath to defend Poland at all costs, joining nearly 200 other regional members of the association — young men and women, boys and girls — marching in formation around the perimeter of the dusty high school courtyard here. They crossed Polish Army Boulevard and marched into the center of town, sprawling in four long lines along the edge of St. Joseph’s Square.

Read the rest here.

Russia has legitimate national interests in Ukraine. That cannot be said of Poland, the Baltic States, Sweden and any number of other countries that have reported a disturbing rise in subtle, and sometimes not so subtle provocations by Russia. At least the Poles are being realistic about their national defenses, unlike so many of the older NATO members who seem to be tripping over one another in a mad rush to disarm.

Russian and Polish church leaders make historic appeal for mutual forgiveness

WARSAW, Poland — The leaders of Russia’s Orthodox church and Poland’s Catholic church signed a document Friday that urges their nations to forgive each other for past wrongs.

The signing in Warsaw during the first visit to Poland by a Russia patriarch has been described by the churches as a historic act of reconciliation and the establishment of a bridge between the denominations. The two nations have feuded for centuries and their ties are still marked by distrust.

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Patriarch Kirill to visit Catholic Poland

Moscow, March 30, Interfax - The Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill is due to visit Poland soon, the head of Synodal Department for Church and Society Relations Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin said.

"In a sequence of visits that any newly elected church leader makes to other local Orthodox churches, Patriarch Kirill is due to pay a visit to the Polish Orthodox Church in the very near future," the priest told a press conference at the Interfax on Friday.

The visit is expected to include contacts with the Roman Catholic Church, he said.

"Naturally, if the visit is to Poland, it would be strange to refuse from contacts with the country's leading Church, especially, in light of the recent dialogue aimed at working out mutually acceptable positions on the issues that the Poles and Russians have for one another. One way or the other, the visit to country with a strong Catholic tradition will involve a contact with this Church," Father Vsevolod added.

Source.

Catholic, Orthodox leaders reach accord on reconciliation between Poland and Russia

Representatives of the Roman Catholic Church and the Russian have reached agreement on a joint statement calling for reconciliation between the people of Russia and Poland: a historic agreement on an issue that has caused enormous friction between the two countries and the two churches.

The joint statement, which is the product of two years of careful negotiations, received final approval at a meeting in Warsaw on March 15. Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow is expected to sign the statement when he visits Poland in August.

The document, which calls for mutual forgiveness and an end to lasting animosities, represents a breakthrough in relations between Catholics and Orthodox. Archbishop Stanislaw Budzik of Lublin, who participated in the talks leading up to the agreement, noted that “never before in history” have bishops of the Polish Catholic Church joined with entered into such a joint statement with their Russian Orthodox counterparts.

Source.

War's Long Shadow: Two Polish children are killed by WWII bomb

Two Polish children have been killed by an explosion of munitions left over from the bitter battles of the Second World War.

The two, brother and sister, were caught in the blast as they played in a ditch in eastern Poland. The 10-year-old boy was killed on the scene while his nine-year-old sister died later in hospital.

"The girl came to us in a very serious condition," said Agnieszka Osinska, a hospital spokeswoman. "She had multiple injuries including a severe head wound, and despite the best efforts of the doctors she failed to regain consciousness." The children's mother and sister who were nearby at the time of the tragedy escaped injury.

Read the rest here.

A Bastion of Religion Sees Rise in Secularism

SWIEBODZIN, Poland — A statue of Jesus, one of the tallest in the world, stands on the flat frozen fields of this small western Poland town, its arms outstretched and gaze fixed straight ahead at a community trying to push back a rising tide of secularism.

The stark, white, 108-foot-high figure was erected last month in part to serve as sentry against a force already churning through Poland. “I hope this statue will become a remedy for this secularization,” said the Rev. Sylwester Zawadzki, the priest who inspired the construction of the figure, which rivals the height of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. “I hope it will have a religious mission and not just bring tourists.”

Poland is still an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nation, still conservative and still religious, especially when compared with its European neighbors. But supporters and critics of the Roman Catholic Church all acknowledge that the society is changing. They agree that church representatives in Poland have lost authority and credibility, and that much of the population is moving toward a more secular view of life, one with a greater separation between church and state, and a rejection of church mandates on individual morality.

“We are considered the European museum of Catholicism, but let me tell you we are no longer,” said Szymon Holownia, program director for Religia TV, a relatively new station that aims to convince Poles that faith can and should be relevant in modern life with programs like a cooking show led by a nun. “The relationship between faith and state is changing; it is changing dramatically in Poland,” Mr. Holownia said. “It is really huge.”

“Twenty years of freedom and religion is evaporating,” he said. “This is the crisis of Christianity in Poland.”

Read the rest here.

Seeking comfort in a sea of candles

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Poland reeling and questions needing answers

In the wake of the catastrophic plane wreck it is worth noting just how much damage has been done to the Polish government and society.

In addition to the death of their president they have also lost the head of the country's central bank, a swath of very senior members of parliament from all of the parties, a significant number of senior staff to the President, a large number of leading figures from Polish society and culture, and perhaps most seriously; almost the entire top layer of Poland's national security team has been wiped out.

Both the civilian and military heads of the national defense forces were killed along with many of the most senior military commanders for each branch of the armed forces. It is difficult to see how a deliberate attempt by terrorists or a foreign enemy to decapitate the Polish national defenses could have been more successful. Indeed this very fact, coupled with Poland's long history of bad relations with Russia has already (and inevitably) got the usual conspiracy theorists fired up.

While I am not a fan of wild conspiracy theories (it looks like a terrible accident), all of this does beg a number of questions. Chief among them... What on Earth were they thinking putting so many senior government officials on one plane? I mean seriously. The lowest and most rookie security agent should know that this is a no no.

This is not a new concept. We in the United States have long understood that you don't put all your people in one place at any given time without truly exceptional reasons. The only two circumstances I am aware of where this occurs here is the annual State of the Union Address and the every four years Presidential Inaugural. In both of which cases extraordinary security measures are taken. At least as far back as the 1960's there were protocols against too many senior people being on the same plane. In 1963 during the fateful trip to Texas, President Kennedy and Vice-President Johnson both traveled to Dallas... on separate planes.

Tragedy in Russia - Poland

Reports are coming in that the plane of the President of Poland has crashed in Russia. Preliminary reports suggest there are no survivors. The Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, and his wife were enroute to Smolensk for ceremonies honoring the many thousands of Polish military officers and civil servants who were massacred by the Soviets under orders from Stalin during World War II. The ceremonies were to be held in the Katyn Forest, the site where the majority of the murders took place.

There is a long and very painful history of bad blood between Poland and Russia going back centuries. It is only in recent years that there have been signs of a thawing in Russo-Polish relations. Let us pray that this tragedy does nothing to harm relations between these two countries that both suffered from the twin horrors of invasion by the Nazis and prolonged oppression under the Communists.

May the memory of those killed be eternal. And may God grant comfort to those who mourn them.

Update: More preliminary reports state that there were 132 people on board the plane including the head of the Polish Army and other very senior members of the Polish government. All reports are confirming that there are no survivors.

This is a horrific disaster.

Update 0247 PDLT: A very preliminary list of some of the more important casualties include...

Lech Kaczyński - the President of Poland

Maria Kaczyńska - the First Lady

Ryszard Kaczorowski - last Polish President in exile

Jerzy Szmajdziński - Vice Speaker of the Lower House

Krzysztof Putra - Vice Speaker of the Lower House

Władysław Stasiak - chief of the President's Chancellary

Aleksander Szczygło - chief of the Office for National Security

Paweł Wypych - Presidential Secretary of State

Mariusz Handzlik - as above

Andrzej Kremer - vice Minister of Foreign Affairs

General Franciszek Gągor - Chief of Staff of the Polish Army

Przemysław Gosiewski - Prominent Politician

Zbigniew Wassermann - as above

Janusz Kochanowski - Polish ombudsman

Sławomir Skrzypek - Director of the Polish National Bank

Janusz Kurtyka -Chief of the Institute for the National Rememberance

Bishop Tadeusz Płoski - Roman Catholic field bishop of the Polish Army (head Catholic chaplain)

Archbishop Miron Chodakowski - Eastern Orthodox field bishop of the Polish Army