Expect Poland To Expand Its Sphere Of Influence After Russia’s Ukrainian Operation
These objectively existing facts discredit the false information warfare narrative alleging that Russia’s the one with a regional sphere of influence when it’s very clearly the US and Poland that are carving such out instead.
The false claims of Russia attempting to carve out a so-called “sphere of influence” in Ukraine, which the author comprehensively debunked here, conveniently ignore that the US already carved out its own such sphere in Europe through NATO at the expense of Russia’s national security red lines. While objective observers were already aware of this, few realized that there’s another country that’s carving out a regional sphere of influence, and that’s Poland, which is expected to exploit Russia’s special operation in Ukraine to that end. This piece aims to concisely explain why that’s happening, which will in turn expose the fallacy of claiming that Russia’s the one with a regional sphere of influence.
Poland envisions restoring its historical Commonwealth that it feels was unfairly stolen from it by its three neighboring imperialist powers at the end of the 18th century. The reality, however, is that large chunks of its informal empire that masqueraded under the disguise of a so-called “commonwealth” actually occupied the ancient lands of Kievan Rus. This was the precursor of the modern Russian state and was inhabited by Orthodox East Slavs who were cruelly mistreated all throughout history by their Polish Catholic occupiers, including as de facto second-class citizens during the interwar Second Polish Republic prior to being liberated by the Red Army in mid-September 1939.
Nevertheless, Poland sees everything differently and considers itself to have historically played the role of Western Christendom’s “shield” against the so-called “Russian barbarians” from the East, who were and still currently are described in ethno-religiously condescending ways, including by making very racist references to the Mongols’ several centuries-long occupation of their civilization-state. It plans to restore its lost sphere of influence through the “Three Seas Initiative” (3SI) aimed at comprehensively incorporating the Central & Eastern European (CEE) states into a Polish-led multidimensional de facto alliance, the core of which will be the “Lublin Triangle” that was announced in summer 2020 between itself, Lithuania, and Ukraine (the latter of which will likely leave after the end of the current conflict).
In response to Russia’s special operation in Ukraine, Poland will predictably aspire to position itself as NATO’s most important and impassioned anti-Russian vanguard proxy state. It’s already making moves in this direction as evidenced by its dispatch of more weapons to its Ukrainian junior partner, closure of airspace to Russian planes, banning of Russian channels, and potential plans to even ban Russian citizens from entering the country. These radical moves prove that Poland is exploiting the conflict in Ukraine for the purpose of further expanding its envisioned sphere of influence in the region. These objectively existing facts discredit the false information warfare narrative alleging that Russia’s the one with a regional sphere of influence when it’s very clearly the US and Poland that are carving such out instead.
