'Far-right politicians' anti-Ukraine rhetoric shows Russian influence': MP Kniazhytskyi on Polish elections

Ukrainian lawmaker Mykola Kniazhytskyi expressed this opinion in the World and Us project with Yevhen Mahda.

"Politicians often want to find a scapegoat to blame for all their problems or someone to fight. Unfortunately, many Polish politicians choose Ukrainians for this role. This is a big problem, because we all know that when Poland and Ukraine start fighting, it is Russia that wins. There are many historical examples of this, but people who often call on us to study history themselves don’t learn it and use the Ukrainian factor," he said.

Kniazhytskyi noted that this could be called a virus that has been embedded in Polish society for a long time.

"This virus has already been embedded in Polish society. At one time, the Law and Justice party made a resolution, and now a law has been passed about the so-called 'genocide of Poles by Ukrainians.' However, at that time, Ukrainians were simply a national minority and citizens of the Commonwealth of Poland. When there were Ukrainian-Polish conflicts, all of this happened on land occupied by Germany. Therefore, Germany is responsible for everything that happened in that territory, and certainly not Ukraine, which did not even exist then," the MP pointed out.

Additionally, he believes that Polish far-right politicians are under Russian control.

"The thing is, we looked at the far-right. The far-right uses the anti-Ukrainian card because I am absolutely convinced that they are under Russian control. The right-wing, such as 'Law and Justice, is afraid of losing their electorate and wants to gain it, so they use this card too. And here, the government or the current ruling coalition of the Civic Platform makes a big mistake by not standing firm on their principles and starting to play along with the far-right anti-Ukrainian ideas that were born in this far-right environment, thinking they will take those voters. But in fact, the opposite happens because these people do not trust them, and they do not remain consistent and strong in their anti-Ukrainian rhetoric. They cast their votes for those who are truly anti-Ukrainian, taking them away from the ruling coalition," Kniazhytskyi added.

• On June 1, Poland held the second round of presidential elections. The winner was the candidate from the Law and Justice party, Karol Nawrocki. The gap between him and his opponent, Rafał Trzaskowski from the Civic Platform, was less than 2%. The current Polish leader, Andrzej Duda, congratulated the successor.