One of their authors is bashing Poland for not doing even more than it already has.
Newsweek recently published an opinion piece arguing that “Dwindling US Support Isn’t Ukraine’s Biggest Problem—Poland Is”. According to author Juliette Bretan, “as a result of a new right-wing president, unresolved wartime tensions, an economic downturn, and Russian disinformation, Polish aid for Ukraine is rapidly waning.” She then fearmongers that “this fraying of relations might lead to issues with future plans for defense in Ukraine, as well as its relation to the EU and NATO.”
In her telling, President Karol Nawrocki’s decision not to extend special support for Ukrainians “points to a deterioration in relations”, but Ukrainians shouldn’t have expected special treatment at Polish taxpayers’ expense indefinitely. As for their “unresolved wartime tensions”, Bretan tacitly justifies the massacre of over 100,000 Poles by Ukrainian nationalists as “likely in response to Polish repression of Ukrainians in the region in the interwar period”, which reverses the roles of victim and villain.
Her take on the influence of the economic downturn suggests that Poles should endure even greater sacrifices by allowing Ukraine to join the EU and thus flood their agricultural market with cheap grain. Whatever alleged disinformation Russian social media spread about the farmers’ protests a few years back also didn’t “sow divisions between Poland and Ukraine” since such divisions were already occurring as a result of Ukraine’s policy of prioritizing its own interests, in this case economic, at Poland’s expanse.
Conspicuously omitted from Bretan’s report is the role that none other than the Ukrainian Ambassador to Poland has played in reshaping Poles’ attitudes about Ukraine and its refugees. He admitted last September that his co-ethnics don’t want to assimilate in Poland and then downplayed what Poles consider to be the Volhynia Genocide by refusing to describe its orchestrators as criminals. It’s little wonder that more Poles consequently oppose continued aid to Ukraine and its refugees.
Throughout her piece, she blames Poland and Poles for their country’s increasingly complicated ties with Ukraine without acknowledging that Ukraine and its representatives – including refugees – are responsible for this, which makes it an agenda-driven misinformation product for impugning her targets. Moreover, regardless of whatever one’s opinion might be about the issues that she drew attention to, it’s absurd to fearmonger that they might lead to Poland restricting NATO’s military logistics to Ukraine.
That’s not being discussed by either half of Poland’s ruling duopoly, nor has it ever even been floated, since one of their rare points of agreement is for Poland to continue playing this role in order to help Ukraine inflict a strategic defeat upon their millennium-old Russian rival. This doesn’t mean that Poland won’t attach strings to its own military aid, just that it will not under any circumstances impede NATO’s military aid to Ukraine, thus handing Russia the same strategic victory it’s sought to deny it for years.
To that end, Poland already spent 4.91% of its GDP on aid to Ukraine (mostly for its refugees) and donated its entire stockpile to it too, sending more tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and aircraft than any other country per official statistics as of 2025 that can be reviewed here. Far from being Ukraine’s “biggest problem”, Poland has therefore been one of its biggest benefactors, but casual observers wouldn’t know that since Bretan and others are nowadays bashing Poland for not doing even more.
