Last week, Western leaders met for an extraordinary NATO summit in Brussels to discuss the next steps related to the war in Ukraine. The meeting was attended by European leaders as well as the US President, Joe Biden. On the same day, a G7 meeting and a European Council summit also took place. During his stay in Brussels, British Poles editor-in-chief George Byczynski gave an interview to the British television channel GBNews.
NATO’s North Atlantic Council meeting in Brussels was meant to showcase the unity of the West against the Russian invasion and disregard for human rights. In particular, Poland has been praised for a compassionate and efficient response to the crisis, providing substantively more humanitarian aid than other countries. In his interview for GBNews, George Byczynski referred to the Polish support during the crisis.
“Poland, throughout various conflicts around the world, has helped refugees, for example, Jews during the Second World War that were haunted by the Nazis, just as Ukrainians today are fleeing Ukraine because of the Russian invasion. The Ukrainians are all over every single Polish city. Wherever you go, you hear Ukrainian or Russian. This solidarity comes from our hearts.”
When asked about limited support towards migrants from Syria, Afghanistan or Iraq, George Byczynski answered:
“When one looks at what Belarus tried to do just last year, they got economic migrants from around the world. Those people very often paid tens of thousands of Euros to smugglers. Then mostly able-bodied men were crossing the border illegally. That’s very different to the situation that we have right now at the Polish border. These are mostly women and children. They’re all going through the gate legally and asking for either refuge or to stay in Poland for some time. So, it’s almost incomparable.”
While Poland has been praised for its humanitarian and military support, Hungary has been politically passive in comparison to fellow Visegrád Group countries. During the summit, President Biden has pressured the European leaders to impose further sanctions and Polish officials even suggested a trade ban as a possible solution. At the same time, Hungary, Austria and Germany, which are heavily dependent on fuel supplies from Russia, adopted a more neutral approach. George Byczynski commented on the Hungarian stance:
“Unfortunately, Hungarians throughout centuries enjoyed neutral political statements. It is, to some extent, slightly disappointing because we need unity. We need strong statements sent toward Russia for what they’re doing. Hungarians are helping, but they’re also playing their political game. I do think that the Visegrád can count on each other. All the countries are speaking together. The Visegrad countries recently visited Boris Johnson in London, and we spoke in one voice. We may have some differences, but on this, we are united.”
On the passivity of Germany and France, he added:
“I spoke to the Polish Deputy Prime Minister. He said that he was disappointed with the European Union. Poland just took in over 2 million refugees. That’s more than any other conflict since the Second World War in our European continent. It’s incredible. And how much help are we getting from the EU? Not much. There are sanctions, and humanitarian support is coming, but as you may have seen here in Brussels, there were some people from the German delegations that tried to delay those sanctions. […] Ukraine needs help right now. And so does Poland because we’re accepting so many refugees.”
As NATO cannot reach an agreement over the no-fly zone, fears over the outcome of the war intensified. Russian President Vladimir Putin adopted a ruthless tactic, including bombing civilian buildings and preventing humanitarian support. Policymakers suggested the possibility of Putin using chemical and nuclear weapons. In this context, NATO has been carefully planning its responses. George Byczynski comments on the Polish expectations towards NATO:
“We need to do everything possible, not to intensify things and not to cause the third world war. That’s very important, but we need to also understand what Putin’s language is. He only understands strength. If we will be weak, keep on talking about the threats from Russia and the threat of the war, he will see this as a weakness and use it against us. He will push to take over not just half of Ukraine, but maybe the whole country. There are also other countries like Moldova that are threatened by Putin. NATO needs to do more. Of course, we should not get into a conflict with Russia. That would be a threat to our civilization and to the whole continent. At the moment, Ukraine is fighting for Europe, and we need to do everything possible to help them.”
Following the NATO summit, President Joe Biden travelled to Poland in order to meet with American soldiers stationed close to the border with Ukraine. Additionally, he met with the Polish President Andrzej Duda to discuss the coordination of humanitarian and military efforts.
Author: Marta Kąkol
