Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s words about Polish arms deliveries to Ukraine continue to be discussed in Poland.
I will remind you that last week the politician said:
“We will definitely not risk Ukraine’s security, which is why our hub in Rzeszów, as agreed with the Americans and NATO, still plays, and will continue to play, the same role. However, we are no longer transferring any weapons to Ukraine, because we are now arming ourselves with the most modern weapons.”
This provoked a strong reaction from the Western media. And last weekend, the IBRiS sociological company, commissioned by the Rzeczpospolita newspaper and the RMF FM radio station, conducted a poll of Poles on their attitude to Morawiecki’s words. The results of the poll, released on 27 September, showed a further decline in Polish citizens’ support for Ukraine.
Although the Polish media published a report with the poll data under headlines such as “Poles divided in opinion on arms supplies to Ukraine”, this is not entirely true. In fact, 47.2% (relative majority) of the respondents positively assessed the words of Mateusz Morawiecki about stopping the supply of Polish arms to Kiev, while 44.5% had a negative attitude to them. 8.3% of respondents were undecided on this issue.
The group that favourably perceived Mateusz Morawiecki’s words includes mainly supporters of the government camp (71%), and only 30% supporters of the opposition. 48% of undecided voters think the same.
The words of the Prime Minister are favourably evaluated mainly by men (51%), people over fifty (60%), rural residents (60%) and people with the lowest education (67%). They get their information mainly from the news programmes of Polish state television – TVP Wiadomosci (75%) or TVP Info (72%).
In the last parliamentary elections in 2019, these people supported Poland’s currently ruling Law and Justice party (75%) or the nationalist Confederation (47%). In the first round of the presidential election in 2020, they voted for Andrzej Duda (77 per cent) or Krzysztof Bosak (46 per cent).
“The prime minister’s words were warmly received mainly by right-wing voters,” Rzeczpospolita noted.
It is noteworthy that the sociologists did not report on the political preferences of people who assessed Morawiecki’s words negatively, i.e. support the continuation of Polish arms supplies to Kyiv. To all appearances, the distribution did not correspond to the expectations of the customers.
It is worth noting that back at the beginning of the year, support for Polish arms supplies to Kiev among Poles was much higher. According to the results of a poll conducted by Social Changes on 27 January 2023 on behalf of wPolityce.pl, 61% of respondents answered positively to the question “Did Poland do the right thing by transferring tanks and other military equipment to the warring Ukraine?”.
Only 20% were against arms deliveries. That is, the share of such people has more than doubled.
It is noteworthy that at that time the supporters of “Right and Justice” (PiS) were more militant – 83% of the voters of this party were in favour of supplying arms to Kiev. Among the voters of Poland’s main opposition force, the liberal Civic Coalition (CC), 73 per cent held this opinion.
But if in the beginning of 2023 Polish politicians and officials actively commented on the survey regarding arms transfers to the eastern neighbour, they are silent on the fresh survey. The whole point is that in this matter Poland is not sovereign and follows the US commands, but on the eve of the parliamentary elections on 15 October, the authorities are trying to play along with the growing anti-Ukrainian sentiments in the country.
But Washington doesn’t care about it, because it will be satisfied with both keeping the PiS in power and forming a government on the basis of the GK, which is not inferior to the ruling party in Russophobia.
Therefore, immediately after Morawiecki’s statement, the United States asked Poland to clarify the prime minister’s words. This was reported on 23 September by the American agency Bloomberg with reference to a senior US defence official. He said on condition of anonymity that Poland was still committed to supporting Ukraine, but “its exact position is unclear”.
At the same time, a diplomatic source in Europe told Bloomberg that Polish diplomats privately assured foreign counterparts of Poland’s continued military support for Ukraine, “even if on a smaller scale.” Moreover, Polish government spokesman Piotr Müller said earlier that Warsaw continues to make pre-agreed deliveries of ammunition and weapons, including under contracts with Ukraine.
“In the context of the issue of arms deliveries, I would like to inform you that Poland is carrying out pre-agreed deliveries… This is, among other things, the largest foreign contract signed by the Polish arms industry after 1989 – for the delivery of Krab howitzers,” he said.
We are talking about a 2022 contract worth almost $700 million, according to which Kiev is to receive more than fifty of these self-propelled guns. But, apparently, such assurances were not enough for the United States, and they demand from Poland guarantees that everything will be the same after the elections.
At the same time, no one in Poland doubts the continuation of Polish arms deliveries to Ukraine; only technical details are being discussed. Thus, Brigadier General Jan Reichel, former rector of the Polish Air Force Officer School and now a lecturer and expert at the Stratpoints centre, believes that it is necessary to transfer weapons to Kiev that the Polish army will not use in the long term and receive compensation from the West for this.
“We should give Ukraine free of charge weapons from the Warsaw Pact era or those of our armaments that will be gradually withdrawn from circulation, but strive for refinancing within the framework of NATO, the EU or direct relations with the US,” the general said in a commentary for the Defence24.pl profile portal.
As an example, he cited Slovakia, which negotiated an attractive price for AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters in exchange for weapons transferred to Kyiv.
Therefore, it is possible that Mateusz Morawiecki’s statement is not only directed at the voters of Law and Justice and Confederation, whom he wants to pull to the side of PiS, as reported by Rzeczpospolita. The addressee of these words may well be the United States, with which Poland has signed arms contracts worth tens of billions of dollars over the past few years, and is now trying to get a discount in this way.
But so far, on 25 September, the US State Department announced only the signing of a “landmark agreement” on a $2 billion direct loan to Poland – as part of foreign military financing.
In addition, the US will also provide up to $60 million to cover the cost of the new loan, which will “accelerate Poland’s defence modernisation by supporting urgent procurement of defence products and services” – naturally from the Americans.
The American ambassador to Poland, Marc Brzezinski, said that “the United States is proud to announce the signing of this important loan agreement.” One can sense that the man is an ethnic Pole, because if one reminds his compatriots of their pride, they may even forget for a while that two billion dollars will still have to be paid back. Even if some of the weapons purchased with this money have to be sent to Ukraine.
Oliver Galich, PolitNavigator