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   kravietz 🦇 (kravietz@agora.echelon.pl)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Jul-2026 07:48:52 JST kravietz 🦇

   in reply to

   • kravietz 🦇
   • Aho
   • txtx 🇪🇺

   @aho @txtx

   Especially worth highlighting is the Realna Istoria channel (middle right) which a few years ago recorded a very balanced video about the Volhynia where both Vyatrovych and Polish historians participated and spoke about facts, but in a concilatory way. Here you’ve got two videos from the same channel where the same Vyatrovych authoritatively presents Poland as the main evil.

   • NeonPurpleStar :heart_bi: likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     kravietz 🦇 (kravietz@agora.echelon.pl)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Jul-2026 07:48:53 JST kravietz 🦇

     in reply to

     • Aho
     • txtx 🇪🇺

     @aho @txtx

     By the way, here’s a collage of videos that YouTube is showing me today from Ukrainian media I follow. Because many of them I’ve followed for a long time, I cannot but notice a rapid change in their attitude that happened over the last 1-2 weeks, when the same media published a lot of videos on that topic but with more balanced and conciliatory titles. Which makes me suspect that there were some grants from Presidential Administration to escalate the situation even further, because these vicious clickbaits are entirely different in tone from what I saw weeks ago. Here’s a sample for those who can’t read Ukrainian:

     • “Ukraine is playing in higher league, Poland is nowhere near”
     • “Fear of competition, the roots of Polish shauvinism”
     • “Polish Ukrainophobia as 1930’s antisemitism”
     • “The final solution to the Ukrainian question”
     • “Shock!? Hunt for Ukrainians starts in Poland”
     • “Poland raised a new ultimatum to Ukraine!”

     I’m sorry to say, but it’s 1:1 mirror of Russian media headlines about Ukraine in 2014…

     P.S. ironically, the one in Polish that got in the middle is quite emphatic “Kharkiv - chronicle of survival” documentary from Poland’s OSW, describing genocidal attacks by Russia on Kharkiv

   • Embed this notice
     kravietz 🦇 (kravietz@agora.echelon.pl)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Jul-2026 07:48:54 JST kravietz 🦇

     in reply to

     • Aho
     • txtx 🇪🇺

     @aho

     Russians are infantile and totally apolitical, but there’s one significant difference between them and Western Slavs (Ukrainians & Poles). Russians are a collective society where an individual doesn’t matter and the concept of authority is quasi-sacred.

     We on the other hand are highly individualist, there’s a sense of individualism totally overgrown into a form of egocentrism and we have zero respect for authority.

     You can argue for years which one is “better” or “worse”, but a very simple historical fact that when Russians are told by their Fuehrer to go West and conquer, they simply shut up and go conquer, while our morons will continue categorically screaming at each other which method of defense we should choose because everyone knows better 🤷

     I know Israel today is nobody’s favourite example of anything, but they are a small country surrounded by eternally hostile neighbours and, even with the tendency to argue about everything that Jews are always joking about, they manage to build a very strong state structures and unite to combat existential threat.

     And we never did.

     @txtx

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     Aho (aho@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Jul-2026 07:48:55 JST Aho

     in reply to

     • txtx 🇪🇺

     @kravietz @txtx it sounds much how russians act on videos when they run out of gasoline and cry on their videos not understanding why, could it be a sad inheritance from russia during the occupation? a kind of russian mentality 🤔

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     txtx 🇪🇺 (txtx@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Jul-2026 07:48:56 JST txtx 🇪🇺

     in reply to

     • Aho

     @aho @kravietz Yep. This is the problem in Central/Eastern Europe. It's an onion of grievances and all of us want to show we cry the hardest.

     The problem is that none of us can bring back the dead. But each of us wants someone else to "do something". And that's not wrong, in principle.

     Yes, build a monument, create a museum. Be proud of the past, be aware of the good and the bad. That said, I really wish we could move on. It's tiring. Europe can't be a giant WW2 museum forever.

   • Embed this notice
     kravietz 🦇 (kravietz@agora.echelon.pl)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Jul-2026 07:48:56 JST kravietz 🦇

     in reply to

     • Aho
     • txtx 🇪🇺

     @txtx

     The primary problem with Poles and Ukrainians is that in their majority they have emotional control of a 5 years old and zero ability to verify anything.

     The amount of Russian fakes about Ukraine shared by Poles on social media is stunning, only two days ago I was going around on Twitter and explaining to Ukrainians that the video they furiously shared about “Poles want Lviv back” was produced by a Russian journalist (!) living in Tiraspol (!) but they did not give a shit because they liked how it hits Poles.

     In socio-cultural evolutionary terms I’m more and more convinced that the Western Slavic nations simply never developed sufficient statehood instinct to be able to be able to defend their statehood in long term. We simply prefer short-term excitation, childish emotions and silly utopias over long-term pragmatic political work.

     As result, we’re doomed to repeat what our equally moronic ancestors did in XVII and XX century and continue fighting with ourselves to the joy of Moscow. Poles are even more ridiculous here, because there’s now 50/50 split and one half is fighting the other, plus some are fighting Ukraine, plus some are fighting EU.

     In the long term however, past Polish governments had enough brains to get us into NATO and EU, while Ukrainians for decades preferred to suspended between EU and Russia, until they finally lost Crimea and kind of saw what’s going on - for a moment, because shortly after all the well-known shit was back - like corruption, “Dnipro call centers”, bribes to avoid mobilisation while politicians send children abroad. And NATO nor EU were never priority, because that would mean getting rid of the above.

     @aho

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     txtx 🇪🇺 (txtx@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Jul-2026 07:48:57 JST txtx 🇪🇺

     in reply to

     @kravietz The way I see it, Ukraine can be given a bit of slack — they are in the middle of a war with Russia.

     Poland is at peace. WW2 is over. Ukraine isn't going to start attacking Poland. WW2 is not a pressing issue the way that Russia killing Ukrainians every single day, right now, is.

     IMO the least Poland can do is take a deep breath and work things out asap. But they're not doing this either. This is a type of escalation under the current circumstances.

   • Embed this notice
     Aho (aho@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Jul-2026 07:48:57 JST Aho

     in reply to

     • txtx 🇪🇺

     @txtx @kravietz I hope the Polishification in the 1920's wont be mentioned by the Ukrainians, that would most likely make things worse.
     UPA, no matter the darker side of it's history will be a part of what makes Ukrainians united and remember the long fight against russia.

     The risk ones hero is someone else villain is quite likely.

     Just hope things will cool down when nazi russia don't get what they want

   • Embed this notice
     txtx 🇪🇺 (txtx@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Jul-2026 07:48:58 JST txtx 🇪🇺

     in reply to

     @kravietz It's hard to decipher what Budanov is saying here. It's all sort of cryptic.

     De-escalation would be a good thing. But neither side seems to be particularly interested in it.

     Will NATO allies come in and try to mend things? I think it's past time, but, unfortunately, nobody seems interested.

   • Embed this notice
     kravietz 🦇 (kravietz@agora.echelon.pl)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Jul-2026 07:48:58 JST kravietz 🦇

     in reply to

     • txtx 🇪🇺

     @txtx

     I don’t think there’s some kind of “mutual escalation” here. Zelensky made a decision to name a military unit after UPA - it was his decision, made in public. Polish side - in a quite unusual unity - said it’s honoring a military organisation known for mass war crimes on Poles, but I’m not aware of any “ultimatums” it has raised towards Ukraine.

     Quite the opposite, Tusk (PM) statements highlighted the strategic alliance between Poland and Ukraine and the need for continued military support, while also criticizing the UPA decision in a very diplomatic language. At the Ukraine’s diplomacy level, there were numerous attempts to deescalate - minister Sybiha, prime minister Svyrydenko all made very reasonable statements.

     However, Zelensky seems to run a separate foreign policy in this aspect - and it’s possible he’s even entitled to do so, because Ukraine is a presidential-parliamentary republic unlike Poland, where president’s role is very limited. Or more precisely, it’s limited legally but not in PR terms, unfortunately. He can’t do much legally, but he can cause a lot of harm my mere making statements.

     The publication of the PAC-3 donation to Ukraine in my opinion was 100% Russian disintegration operation - they leaked it to right-wing politicians in Poland and the government was forced to respond to that.

     Why is Ukrainian president escalating in such a situation is well beyond me, but the fact that his ratings have benefited from this scandal - just as Nawrocki’s, who also runs a separate foreign policy, although mostly on words - suggests that both are simply in electoral campaign mode already and don’t give a shit about foreign relations with “weak” neighbours like Poland. It also suggests there will be even more escalation between the presidents, while our governments will scratch their heads on how to do any damage control in such an absurd situation.

   • Embed this notice
     kravietz 🦇 (kravietz@agora.echelon.pl)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Jul-2026 07:48:59 JST kravietz 🦇

     #Ukraine Budanov[^1] about relations with #Poland

     Budanov had warned publicly that the standoff’s worst moment might still be ahead — a forecast he repeated without softening. With the July 11 anniversary of the Volyn tragedy now less than a week away, he said his information points to a “whole series of, as I see it, immature escalatory steps” still being prepared in Warsaw, and expects the friction to continue accordingly. (…) No offense to Poland, but it’s somewhat more powerful than Poland — and we didn’t accept its ultimatum either. Yes, it was hard, it was bad, there was a lot of blood. But we didn’t accept even their ultimatum. So why would anyone think we’d accept something else from another side? You don’t negotiate with us through ultimatums.

     Meanwhile[^2]

     The Polish government carried out a discreet transfer of surface-to-air missiles from the MIM-104 Patriot long range air defence system to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, with this reported by multiple regional sources to have occurred in the spring of 2026.

     I don’t think you need to be extremely insightful to see where this is going.

     [^1]: https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/interview/you-don-t-talk-to-us-with-ultimatums-kyrylo-1783404039.html

     [^2]: https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/poland-patriot-missiles-ukraine-refusing-us