Poland, with election looming, says it isn't sending new arms to Ukraine
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[September 21, 2023]
WARSAW (Reuters) -Poland is only carrying out previously
agreed arms deliveries to Ukraine, a government spokesman said on
Thursday, amid souring bilateral relations due to a grain dispute just
weeks before a Polish parliamentary election.
Poland's decision to extend a ban on Ukrainian grain imports has annoyed
Kyiv. Poland has been seen until recently as one of Ukraine's staunchest
allies in its war with Russia.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Wednesday that Poland, a NATO
member, was no longer arming Ukraine and was focusing on rebuilding its
own weapon stocks.
"I would like to inform you that Poland is only carrying out previously
agreed supplies of ammunition and armaments," government spokesman Piotr
Muller told state-run news agency PAP on Thursday. "This includes those
resulting from the contracts signed with Ukraine."
Asked about Morawiecki's comments on arms supplies, State Assets
Minister Jacek Sasin said: "At the moment it is as the prime minister
said, in the future we will see."
Sasin said the row over grain imports did not mean Poland had ceased to
back Ukraine against Russia but that Warsaw needed to replenish its own
arms stockpiles.
"In this case, Polish interests come first," he said. "We cannot disarm
the Polish army, we cannot get rid of the weapons that are necessary for
our security."
"Where we could arrange for the transfer of weapons, we did it and we
were very generous in this matter... here we have absolutely nothing to
reproach ourselves with."
Poland has supplied, among other weapons, T-72 and Leopard tanks,
armoured vehicles and howitzers to Ukraine since the Russian invasion on
Feb. 24, 2022. Warsaw has not published a complete list of all the
materiel it has given.
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Poland's President Andrzej Duda speaks next to Ukraine's Ambassador
to the United Nations Sergіy Kyslytsya during a ministerial level
meeting of the U.N. Security Council on the crisis in Ukraine at
U.N. headquarters in New York, September 20, 2023. REUTERS/Mike
Segar/File Photo
'MOMENTS OF TENSION'
A U.S. official who recently visited Poland dismissed suggestions
that Morawiecki's comments were a sign of cracks in Western
solidarity with Ukraine.
"We're all human and there are moments of tension... But that
doesn't mean that there's going to be some dramatic shift in
alliance unity or even Poland's fundamental position and
determination to support Ukraine for as long as it takes," said the
official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Poland holds a parliamentary election on Oct. 15, and the ruling
nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party has come in for criticism
from the far right for what it says is the government's subservient
attitude to Ukraine.
The Confederation party, which has given voice to anti-Ukrainian
sentiments, is third in many polls and has emerged as a possible
kingmaker. Analysts say PiS's tougher rhetoric on Ukraine is a
response to Confederation's increasing popularity
Marek Swierczynski, a defence analyst at think-tank Polityka Insight
said that while it was probably true that Poland currently had no
more weapons to give to Ukraine, Morawiecki must have known that the
timing of his comments meant they would land "like a grenade into a
cesspit".
"In my opinion it is more of an escalation of the campaign... to
gain a few percent more of the anti-Ukrainian electorate in Poland,"
he said.
(Reporting by Alan Charlish, Pawel Florkiewicz, Agnieszka
Pikulicka-Wilczewska in Warsaw, Andrew Gray in Brussels; editing by
Philippa Fletcher and Gareth Jones)
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