April 19, 2015

By Joanna Stanislawska

JKM: Poland does not have a conflict of interests with Russia. We have no problems on the Polish-Russian border. Fostering a militaristic state of mind is not useful to us, only to the US. It’s hard to agree with people like Vladimir Zhirinovskiy, since he is crazy, but he is fair to call us as Washington’s stooges.

Wirtualna Polska: But such sentiments are only natural given Russia’s aggressive policies. It’s difficult to ignore Iskander missiles on our borders.

JKM: Just a second! The Iskanders appeared there only recently, after Poland launched a hundred brutal verbal assaults on Russia, and after US armored cavalry paraded on Polish territory. I am a poker player, and in poker one has to think like the opponent. From Russia’s perspective, the situation looks as follows: in the last twenty years NATO had swallowed up the German Democratic Republic, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, and wants to lay its paws on Ukraine. Moreover, they tore Kosovo away from Serbia, attacked Muammar Khadafy (may he rest in peace), and now it is attacking the only defender of Christianity in the Middle East, His Excellency Bashar al-Assad, only because they are Russia’s allies. One can find an internet meme which says “Russians want war. Look how they placed their country close to NATO bases.” So I’m asking, who’s the aggressor?

Wirtualna Polska: The Ukrainians might have a different view on this matter.

JKM: Unfortunately they can thank the Americans for all that. Russia had a fairly friendly president in Ukraine in the person of Mr. Viktor Yanukovych. And Russia had no intention of taking anything away. It was also the ideal situation for us, because it is in Poland’s interest for Ukraine to exist as an independent state, but also a weak one. That’s what Maidan destroyed. US State Department official Victoria Nuland openly admitted that the US spent $5 billion to destabilize the situation in Ukraine. We are dealing with US aggression in Ukraine. Putin is only pulling chestnuts out of the fire.

Wirtualna Polska: But that’s the money that the US had spent since 1991 to democratize Ukraine. They were not spent to organize the Maidan. Do you believe that it was a CIA operation?

JKM: Yes—and it was also our operation. The snipers were also trained in Poland. Even Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung already wrote who was really shooting on the Maidan. The terrorists had shot 40 demonstrators and 20 police officers in order to provoke disorders. The truth is finally coming out.

WP: Why would Poland want to train those, as you call them, “terrorists”?

JKM: Let me say this again: we are doing a favor to Washington [J.Hawk note: JKM here is making a play on words, because the word “favor” is only one letter away from “blow-job”, which was the word used, and also with reference to Washington, by the former Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski who complained Poland is not getting sufficient appreciation from the US.]

WP: Fine, but do you have any proof?

JKM: I sit in the EU Parliament next to Mr. Urmas Paetz, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia who acknowledged in a telephone conversation with Baroness Catherine Ashton that it was “our people” who shot on the Maidan, and not Yanukovych’s people, or Putin’s people. Trained by us, in Western countries.

WP: I don’t know what Paetz and Ashton talked about, but Putin certainly said this. You are repeating Russian propaganda theses. It’s difficult to consider as consistent with Poland’s national interest.

JKM: His Excellency Vladimir Putin said it two months after Mr. Paetz. I believe in St. Augustine’s principle, “may the world perish, but justice must be done.” If the Russians, through the mouth of Sergey Lavrov, say that they did not violate the Budapest Memorandum, they are lying like dogs, but when they are right, we have to acknowledge it.

WP: NATO has a defensive doctrine, while Putin is arming on a massive scale, is sending tanks and heavy equipment to Ukraine, and you claim this is not an aggressive policy?

JKM: What NATO? The Americans! War is useful only from the American point of view. There are interest groups in the US which are pushing for armed conflict: defense industry, financiers, some politicians, generals, but also many people (some of whom I know personally) from among the neoconservatives. They are analyzing the situation with cold logic: we have built the mightiest army in the world, but we also have 14 trillion dollars in debt, and we can’t afford further development. China, which supports Russia, will soon overtake us, therefore if we are to preserve our global hegemony, we have to start a way, in a few years at the latest. Ukraine is a very convenient pretext. At present time Poland is in a position to prevent World War III.

WP: In what way?

JKM: By declaring neutrality when it comes to Ukraine. Like Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Belarus, which don’t take part in the anti-Russian frenzy. We might save the world if we deprive the US Army from access to Ukraine.

WP: The Kremlin occupied Crimea, and through the pro-Russian separatists it is lawlessly occupying the Eastern Ukraine, but we are supposed to say that nothing happened?

JKM: The Crimean situation is clear. Russia used the Kosovo precedent. Because why can one tear Kosovo away from Serbia, but can’t tear Crimea away from Ukraine? The Russians warned that whoever recognizes Kosovo’s independence gives assent to similar situations in the future. The Donbass is not as obvious, but here Ukraine made a mistake. It should have given up Crimea and placed its military on the border with Russia. Instead it began to scream, but the effect of screaming was that it lost Crimea regardless, while the inhabitants of the Donbass felt that they might succeed too.

WP: So we should have left Ukraine to its own devices?

JKM: It makes no difference to Poland whether Ukraine has Crimea and Donbass or not. We also have to remember that any help to Ukraine is help to people who, at least in Western Ukraine, hate us. Their heroes are Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych who are responsible for the genocide of Polish civilian population in Podolia, Volhynya, and Eastern Little Poland, where up to 100 thousand were killed. Those are fascists.

WP: Once again you are repeating Russian propaganda.

JKM: You have to admit that the Russians have a point when using the term “fascists” to describe, for example, the Right Sector. His Excellency Vladimir Putin should be thanked for one thing: thanks to his actions, the Ukrainians had begun to hate Russians more than Poles.

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WP: Why do you believe that Putin would be a great president of Poland?

JKM: Because he is strong and decisive. The more unhappy they are with him in Europe, the better president he is from Russia’s point of view. We also need a president whom our neighbors would fear.

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WP: Might Warsaw be hit with nuclear weapons?

JKM: I doubt Putin would use nuclear weapons against a country that does not have them and which does not threaten Russia. There is no such risk, in this matter Putin is entirely rational.