Duda Betrayed Poland by Hosting Zelensky Despite Him Not Apologizing for Last Month’s Bombing
Without having realized it, Poland has indisputably fallen under Ukrainian influence instead of Ukraine falling under Poland’s. Zelensky always gets whatever he demands from Duda, never has to apologize or defend himself, and now knows that he can pull his counterpart’s strings without consequence.
The hero’s welcome that Zelensky received from his Polish counterpart Duda last week on his way back to Ukraine after visiting the US amounted to a betrayal of Poland. The Ukrainian leader hadn’t apologized for accidentally bombing that neighboring country last month in an incident that killed two Poles. Moreover, he continues clinging to his dangerous conspiracy theory alleging that Russia was actually responsible despite the US, NATO, and even Poland itself debunking that kooky explanation.
Sputnik drew attention to some social media users’ disgust at this development, including one who wrote that “Your friend Zelensky still did not apologize for the death of two Poles in the missile incident. You are the president of Poland and he does not react.” Describing Zelensky as Duda’s friend is accurate too since Head of the International Policy Bureau in the Chancellery of the President of Poland Jakub Kumoch confirmed their relationship in his comments to TVN24 that were reported by Ukrainian media.
According to him, “Zelensky is now not only Poland’s most important regional partner but also a personal friend of Andrzej Duda”, which might explain why the latter turned a blind eye to his “personal friend” accidentally killing two of his fellow citizens and then continuing to pin the blame on Russia. Even so, it’s still unacceptable from the standpoint of national dignity and self-respect since Duda is supposed to be the “senior partner” in the de facto Polish-Ukrainian confederation that he created.
The fact that he hosted Zelensky despite having never received an apology from him for accidentally bombing Poland suggests that the power dynamics between their two countries are actually very different than they appear. Duda might think that swallowing his country’s pride is the cost to pay in exchange for expanding its envisioned regional “sphere of influence”, yet this is a slippery slope since it could easily result in Zelensky reversing their roles to emerge as the true “senior partner” instead.
Poland has already expended an immense amount of its military stockpiles arming Kiev as part of NATO’s proxy war on Russia through that country yet thus far hasn’t received much of tangible significance in return. To the contrary, Ukraine seems to be the one calling the shots in their de facto confederation by continuing to demand more assistance and always receiving it at the expense of Poland risking the scenario of being unable to meet its own minimum national security needs.
Not only that, but Zelensky was just given a hero’s welcome from his “personal friend” even though he never apologized for accidentally killing two of his host’s people last month. Without having realized it, Poland has indisputably fallen under Ukrainian influence instead of Ukraine falling under Poland’s. Zelensky always gets whatever he demands from Duda, never has to apologize or defend himself, and now knows that he can pull his counterpart’s strings without consequence.
The Polish people are very proud, however, and are thus presumably incensed after seeing Zelensky walk all over their leader like this. All that he had to do was offer an apology, even a discrete one behind the scenes that could then be reported upon by the media to show that he expressed some sadness at being responsible for accidentally killing two of their fellow Poles, yet he refused to do even that. There’s no doubt that the Polish people won’t forget this heading into next fall’s general elections.
