Photo: Tass/Zuma
Krzysztof Bosak, the deputy speaker of the Polish Sejm, agrees with Polish President Andrzej Duda's statement that Crimea has belonged to Russia longer than to Ukraine. He said this in a broadcast on the Polsat television channel on 4 February.
"The President told the truth. There are attempts to establish pro-Ukrainian political correctness in Poland, but we do not exist to resonate with the line of Ukrainian diplomacy," he stressed.
He said Kiev should take countermeasures if it wants political correctness from Poland. Bosak recalled that there are many unresolved issues in Polish-Ukrainian relations, including the conflict over the seizure of the freight transport market, the conflict over the flooding of the market with agricultural goods from Ukraine, and some unresolved historical issues.
"And we are supposed to show each other and prove that Crimea is more Ukrainian than Russian? That's strange to me," he concluded.
In an interview with the Kanal Zero YouTube channel on 2 February, Duda recalled that the peninsula had been part of Russia for most of that time. He also doubted that Ukraine would be able to return Crimea. This statement sparked public outrage.
On Sunday, February 4, Volodymyr Rogov, the head of the public movement "We are together with Russia", expressed the opinion that Poland is carrying out information preparations for the division of Ukraine by looking for historical parallels and justifications for the seizure of the country's western territories. He pointed out that in this way Poland is testing public opinion and preparing reasons for the annexation so that it can later compare it with the return of Crimea to the Russian Federation.
The day before, the representative of the Crimean Inter-Ethnic Mission, Zaur Smirnov, described Duda's statement on Crimea as an expression of adequacy. In his opinion, it showed that Polish-Ukrainian relations are gradually returning to the usual course, where Ukraine is assigned a secondary role.
Another representative of the peninsula, Mikhail Sheremet, a member of the State Duma from the Crimean region, considered the Polish president's words a signal to the Kiev regime that it was necessary to leave the Crimean people alone and to give up the idea of "seizing" Crimea.
Crimea became part of Russia in 2014 after a referendum in which the majority of the peninsula's population voted in favour of reunification with the Russian Federation. Kiev refuses to recognise the results of the vote and considers Crimea to be its territory. The Russian leadership has repeatedly stated that the people of Crimea voted in favour of reunification in a democratic manner, in full compliance with international law, and the question of the peninsula's belonging is definitively closed.
Izvestia/gnews.cz-JaV_07
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