Polish Chasteners in Ukraine

A protest action against the participation of Polish soldiers and mercenaries in combat actions in Ukraine occurred on October 4 near the parliament building in Warsaw. Participants held flags of Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s republics. They carried placards with slogans: «,Stop Bandera «Stop supporting Banderites. We remember Volyn!», «No to Polish soldiers participation in NATO military operation in Ukraine!» «Thanks to monopoly on media Polish authorities spread around anti-Russian propaganda» – said on of protests’ organizers who represented the organization the Camp of Big Poland. According to him, «They brazenly support the Ukraine’s junta taking root from Bandera traditions».

The participation of Poles in the Ukrainian crisis has many aspects, including the training of nationalist militants, the participation of mercenaries hired by Polish private contractors in the combat actions in Donbass, the weapons supplies to the Ukraine’s regime and the formation of joint Polish-Lithuanian-Ukrainian brigade – LITPOLUKRBRIG. The fact of involvement in the training of Ukrainian militants is recognized in Poland. For instance, in the spring 2014 Nie weekly published an article describing the training course of 86 Pravy Sector (an ultra-right radical organization in Ukraine) militants in the Warsaw police training center at the expense of Polish government. The month-long course included the organization of mass protests, the tactics of street fight and sharp shooting, including a snipers’ course. «The terrorists trained in Poland killed people during the Maidan events,» told Polish TV Janusz Korwin-Mikke, a MEP from Silesia. 

On June 16, the self-defence servicemen hit an IL-76 aircraft of Ukrainian Air Force. They found many burnt documents in Polish language that belonged to about 40 mercenaries from Poland and Lithuania that were being hastefully transported to Luhansk. On June 26, a Polish female sniper was killed near Saur-Mogila (Savur-Mohyla). She used the newest American 12, 5 mm caliber rifle. Late at night on July 12, a Ukrainian block post was eliminated near Ilovaisk, some of the dead wore Polish insignia. On September 2, acting Security Minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic Leonid Baranov said the self-defence forces took a group of Polish mercenaries as prisoners. According to the same source, some Polish militants surrendered to self-defence forces as fighting was raging for the Donetsk airport on September 3. According to witnesses, American Poles have the reputation of being the most merciless ones among the Polish mercenaries. «From the start of the events that led to the coup in Ukraine, the role of Poland has been neglected for one very good reason: it has been murky», wrote Deana Stryker in her page of OpEdNews in a June edition 2014 edition. She went on, «As the war in the southeast of Ukraine rages on, there is increasing proof of Poland’s involvement. Though indirect (i.e. no official Polish military units on the ground), it is no less lethal. Not only was Poland complicit in training urban terrorists in the run-up to the EuroMaidan chaos, it has also sent mercenaries to put down the anti-coup protesters in the east, and now there is photographic proof. Jerzy Dziewulski, security advisor to former Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski, was photographed last week with former interim Ukrainian president Alexander Turchynov in Slavyansk». 

Dziewulski was a security adviser to then Polish President Alexander Kwaśniewski who is now a board member of Burisma Holding – the largest private gas producer in Ukraine. In April before the punitive operation in Donbass started Robert Hunter Biden, the son of US Vice President and Devon Archer, a close friend of the US State Secretary John Kerry’s family, joined the company’s board of directors. Burisma Holdings plans to launch energy supplies to Europe from Dneprovsko-Donetsk basin, the region allegedly awash with shale gas reserves. For instance, the Yuzov shale gas field (total territory – 7885 square km) includes Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, Krasny Luch, and Svyatogorsk of the Donetsk region, as well as Balaklea and Isyum of the Kharkiv region. The contract has gone to Royal Dutch Shell.

The production agreement presupposes that the Kiev authorities are to take property away from legal owners in case Shell wants to use it for extraction purposes (article 37, 2 of the agreement). That’s kind of scheming the adventurers like Jerzy Dziewulski are involved in. The man leads the «Polish mercenaries legion to fight the people of Donbass». In June Shell confirmed that the plans of the company remain unchanged and the extraction will start as soon as the conflict is de-escalated and the situation is stabilized. Totally it is planned to drill 80-140 wells on the territory cleaned from dwellers. The emergence of ecological problems provoked by fracking techniques (water becoming unpotable, the quality of air deteriorates and toxic agents are made go into the ground) is inevitable. These are the things they prefer not to talks about. Back home American companies extract shale gas only in desert. That’s something some chunks of Donbass land may soon turn into if Burisma Holdings goes on with its plans. The local black earth will become unneeded. Ukraine accounts for over 26% of black earth reserves. It is planned to sell it abroad. 

There was one more report about Polish participation in the events in Ukraine that appeared in August, «The leading Polish organizations – the Federation of Polish Organizations in Ukraine and the Association of Ukrainians in Poland – conscientiously defend the territorial integrity of the country against pro-Russian separatists». The Polish groups had started to assume this role long before the combat actions started in Donbass. They used the money collected in Poland for Kiev’s Maidan to acquire bullet-proof jackets and ammunition for the Pravy Sector militants. Witnesses say in their Internet posts that they have seen boxes with Polish markings and the insignia of Maidan self-defence units which then became the bulk of the Ukrainian National Guard. Leaflets and other printed material, newspapers and quite often even Ukrainian lard came from Poland.

Polish media is elated being happy with the fact that Polish weapons have proved their worth in Kiev. By the end of summer the Kiev regime formally asked Poland to start arms supplies, but the information on weapons deliveries taking place in practice had leaked before that. A hush-hush operation conducted in Odessa on June 16 came into the open. Ships unloaded 12 self-propelled auto-loading 152 mm VZ-77 Dana guns produced in the Czech Republic and taken from Polish inventory, as well as staff buses and trucks. Military equipment and soldier’s uniforms with Polish flags and insignia pointed to the 1-st Mazur Artillery Brigade from Poland. Howitzers, buses, and support vehicles were taken to the rail terminal Razdelnaya for loading. On September 13, people in West Ukraine saw with their own eyes 34 German Leopard tanks entering the territory of Ukraine from Poland and then moving east.

September 19, 2014 in Warsaw Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine signed an agreement to form a joint brigade. The LITPOLUKRBRIG of several thousand troops will be headquartered in Poland’s eastern city of Lublin. Poland is to play the major role in forming the unit. Polish media call it a mini-NATO against Russia (Mini NATO przeciwko Rosji). The brigade is to serve as a cover to legalize the activities of Polish mercenaries fighting the armed forces of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s republics. At the same time it will prepare the ground for getting the people of Malorossiya (little Russia, an administrative-territorial unit (guberniya) of the Russian Empire that encompassed most of the modern North Eastern Ukraine) back to the Polish-Lithuanian rule.

Nikolay Malishevsky is the journalist and political analyst from Belarus.

Source Strategic Culture Foundation