The Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement regarding the theses that Vladimir Putin presented during an interview with Tucker Carlson. It concerns, among other things, the accusations of the Russian president that Poland collaborated with Hitler. “There was no question of Poland entering any military alliance with Hitler,” the ministry emphasized.
American presenter Tucker Carlson conducted a two-hour interview with Vladimir Putin. The Russian president devoted a significant part of it to presenting his version of the country’s history. Poland played an important role in it. Putin accused Poland, among other things, of cooperating with Hitler in the invasion of Czechoslovakia.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement regarding the “10 lies of President Vladimir Putin about Poland and Ukraine, which Tucker Carlson did not correct.”
- Poland collaborated with Nazi Germany.
- Before World War II, Polish diplomacy sought to maintain good neighborly relations with Germany. There was no question of Poland entering any military alliance with Hitler. Poland, in the interwar period, was between two aggressive neighbors: Germany and Russia, which did not recognize the Polish nation’s right to an independent state in practice. In Berlin in 1934, a Polish-German declaration of non-aggression was signed, intended to guarantee the resolution of disputes by peaceful means. However, a similar non-aggression pact with the USSR was signed earlier in 1932.
- Poles forced Hitler to start World War II with them.
- The Second Polish Republic rejected Hitler’s demands and the proposal for a Polish-German alliance against the USSR. It was Nazi Germany and the Soviet authorities that signed an agreement against Poland on August 23, 1939 (the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact), enabling Germany to launch aggression against Poland on September 1, 1939. Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany cooperated until June 1941.
- Poland became a victim of the policy towards Czechoslovakia because, under the infamous Ribbentrop-Molotov protocols, part of those territories fell to Russia, including Western Ukraine.
- Poland did not participate in or was a party to the Munich Agreement (September 30, 1938), which de facto severely limited Czechoslovakia’s sovereignty. Polish demands regarding Zaolzia were made after the Munich Agreement.
- Ukraine is de facto an artificial entity created by Lenin and Stalin.
- Contemporary Ukraine as a state emerged thanks to the Ukrainian national movement. The Bolsheviks did not create it but only conquered part of its territory, making it one of the Soviet republics. Ukraine was created by the will of the Ukrainians themselves.
- The left bank of the Dnieper, including Kyiv, is historically Russian lands.
- Kyiv was the historical capital of Rus, while Moscow did not exist at that time. In 1991, Ukraine became an independent state with internationally recognized borders.
- The idea of Ukrainians as a separate nation originated in Poland.
- The process of self-identification of Ukrainians as a separate ethnic group occurred parallel to similar processes in 19th-century Europe. The Ukrainian nation was not artificially “invented.”
- NATO bases were created on the territory of Ukraine.
- There are no NATO bases on the territory of Ukraine.
- Ukraine experienced two coups aimed at artificially severing ties with Russia.
- In the Orange Revolution, the Ukrainian nation did not agree to electoral fraud. Organizing another round of voting allowed Viktor Yushchenko, who actually won the majority of votes, to emerge as president. After the Revolution of Dignity, President Petro Poroshenko won the presidential elections democratically.
- In 2014, Moscow was forced to take Crimea under its protection because it was threatened.
- In 2014, there was no threat to Crimea. The Revolution of Dignity led to a change of power peacefully, through democratic elections. Russian “little green men” appeared in Crimea to destabilize the situation in Ukraine.
This statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland addresses and corrects the falsehoods presented by President Vladimir Putin regarding Poland and Ukraine, which were not corrected by Tucker Carlson in his interview.
