Notices by kravietz 🦇 (kravietz@agora.echelon.pl)

#Poland president Nawrocki:

Following the NATO summit in Ankara, the President of Poland Karol Nawrocki met with the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The meeting focused on bilateral relations, including historical issues.

#Ukraine president Zelensky:

We face one common threat – Russia. And it is critical to maintain mutual understanding, support, and unity of action. Our countries need only strong relations. We agreed to continue our dialogue.

(statements from their official profiles on, where else, Twitter)

#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

@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.

@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

@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

@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

@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.

#Hamas dissolves its government in #Gaza to transfer power to a UN-backed committee

https://apnews.com/article/israel-gaza-palestinians-hamas-war-government-146f9a609580d4c8c42ab35fbe60d5b3

Which may be fiction as the topic of disarmament is still not closed. Also speaking of “Hamas government” is a bit of a euphemism as Hamas last won its first and last elections in 2006, after which it took control over Gaza in an armed coup, killing and arresting Fatah (PAA) representatives, and never allowed any elections since.

Yesterday, #Putin delivered yet another surreal “report from the front”, which sparked a fair bit of gallows humour amongst Z-patriots:

1. “We’re 10 km from Sumy” – in reality, it’s 18 km, the same distance as, for example, in January this year.

2. “ZSU units surrounded near Stary Oskol” – that would be very good news, as the only locality of that name lies between Kursk and Voronezh, i.e. deep within #Russia; what Putin meant by this is unclear (just like with “Komsomolsk” a few months ago)

3. “We are 8 km from Sloviansk” – this is the distance between the furthest point where a Russian single-use reconnaissance drone was detected and the outermost administrative part of Sloviansk; in reality, there are more than 20 km between the city and the area under actual Russian control

4. “96 per cent of Konstantinovka is under our control” – this is categorically contradicted by footage published by the Russians themselves, showing drone attacks on ZSU units in the city centre, thereby confirming their presence there

Furthermore, Putin went on to say that “no agreements were reached in Anchorage” (with Trump), contradicting Lavrov’s calls over the past six months for a “return to the Anchorage agreements”, and that the “aim of the SWO” is now – by contrast – “the liberation of the Donbas and Novorossiya”.

Just a few months ago, Lavrov himself had been suggesting that Russia was prepared to agree to a ceasefire in exchange for the handover of the Donbas alone (it does not exercise 100 per cent control over either the ‘DNR’ or even the ‘LNR’). The inclusion of “Novorossiya” on the list also means nothing formally, but it suggests the Mykolaiv and Odesa regions in addition to the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

In other words, Putin is doing exactly what he did in 2022: he is putting himself in a position where the objectives he has declared are completely unrealistic, whilst at the same time expecting both the Russians and the West to play along with a game called ‘Putin must save face in the war’. But today, Putin has far fewer cards to play than he did then – not to mention the fact that he is clearly much more out of touch with reality, not only regarding the situation on the front line but also within Russia itself.

#Poland police detained the primary suspect of assassination of Sergey Skrepitsky, a “man using passport of #Georgia” - please note they merely noted the passport he used, not his ethnicity etc. Could be a paid assassin or organised crime member. He’s the third person detained after 15 June assassination of Skrepitsky, I think one #Belarus citizen was released after confirming he’s was merely a taxi driver.

#Czech meme

#Russia refugee artist Simon Skrepetskiy was today shot to death in #Poland town of Biała Podlaska. His executors were captured near #Belarus consulate, they are citizens of Belarus.

Only on 12 June Skrepetskiy participated in an anti-war protest in Berlin, he received death threats from Russia, Chechnya etc. Large part of his caricatures focused on the corruption in Russia.

Sources:

• https://podlaski.info/2026/06/15/egzekucja-w-bialej-podlaskiej-czy-w-polsce-dopadly-go-macki-kremla-kulisy-zabojstwa-barda/?cn-reloaded=1&cn-reloaded=1 (in Polish)
• https://meduza.io/news/2026/06/15/v-polshe-ubit-hudozhnik-aktsionist-semen-skrepetskiy-on-risoval-karikatury-na-putina-lukashenko-i-navalnogo (in Russian)

@kravietz @tvp_world

Heorhii Tykhyi, spokesperson for the #Ukraine Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to enquiries from the #Poland media regarding the naming of a Ukrainian Armed Forces unit after #UPA heroes and addressed the sharp reaction from the Polish political scene to this move by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy:

We are seeing a strong reaction in Poland to the decision to name one of the Ukrainian military units in honour of UPA heroes. It is a pity that this is happening against the broader trend of resolving problematic issues in Ukrainian-Polish relations, which has been evident over the past year and a half. During this time, both sides have made considerable efforts to resolve difficult historical issues and to develop dialogue and mutual understanding. In particular, the process of searching for and exhuming remains has been resumed. For the first time in many years, the Congress of Historians has resumed its activities. Discussion of the past should be substantive and based on reliable sources.

Our history confirms that it is only Moscow that benefits from disputes between Ukrainians and Poles. Today, Ukrainian soldiers are defending not only Ukraine, but the whole of Europe. In initiating the awarding of an honorary title to their unit, our soldiers certainly did not intend to offend the friendly Polish nation. For them, the UPA’s struggle symbolises solely resistance to Moscow’s imperialist policies – and is in no way directed against the Poles.

We recognise that the history of our two nations has its ups and downs – both glorious and tragic. For example, just yesterday marked the 80th anniversary of the Hrubieszów operation, during which Ukrainian insurgents, together with Polish partisans, carried out a successful attack on NKVD units. In previous eras, Ukrainians and Poles together achieved many glorious victories over their age-old enemy in Moscow – from Orsha to the Miracle on the Vistula. At the same time, it is impossible to deny the tragic chapters of history, including crimes against the civilian population committed, amongst others, by soldiers of Ukrainian and Polish formations during the Second World War.

Ukraine does not shy away from this conversation; it responds constructively to Polish requests regarding exhumations, is building dialogue between historians and experts step by step, and seeks to discuss sensitive aspects of the past without politicising them. We cannot allow disputes over the past to undermine our resistance against a common enemy now that Ukraine – with Poland’s support – is holding back Russian aggression.

We are grateful to Poland and the Polish people, who have supported Ukraine from the very first moments of this unprovoked and criminal war. For our part, we emphasise our readiness to continue sharing the experience and solutions developed at the cost of blood shed on the battlefield,” reads the response from the spokesperson for the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Source: https://xcancel.com/piotrkaszuwara/status/2060434397011304933?s=20

@nastasime

The video is posted on PeerTube here https://video.echelon.pl/w/cj2rTJdtXiScaqYWkXio3Q which fully support the Fediverse protocol for federation ActivityPub.

If I just paste in the post body (as above), it will be just considered a regular link.

But if you paste the link into your platforms search box, here’s where the magic happens - your platform will see it’s an ActivityPub link, and it will show as if it was a regular post on your timeline, which you can then boost, quote, like etc. Hope that helps!

@kravietz @tvp_world

A court in #Russia #Sverdlovsk sentenced a 19 years old man Stanislav Kaigorodov for 45’000 RUB fine for posting a picture of #Stalin covered in blood, surrounded by devils and comment “repressions and dictatorship has triumphed”. The court argued that Kaigorodov picture “weakens the social fabric” and, most surprisingly… rehabilitated Nazism.

Source: https://66.ru/news/incident/6137948-sud-vynes-prigovor-uralcu-za-post-s-okrovavlennym-stalinym/

Why this ruling is absurd? Stalin personally approved orders that resulted in execution or concentration camps of 1.5m people in 1930’s, engineered famine in Ukraine (Holodomor), execution of thousands Polish prisoners of war in Katyń but also, something that Russian propaganda is now desperately trying to erase from history, prosecution and executions of thousands of Orthodox church priests, demolition of churches etc. The wave of repressions against religion ended suddenly only in 1941 when USSR was attacked by its former ally Nazi Germany and Stalin decided that religion can actually help in the defense effort.

@drahardja Sorry for the image issues, my reverse proxy is playing games again… Working on it right now.

Communist #Poland 1980 toilet paper was an extremely valuable trophy these times, because it was in constant shortage. Once you waited in queue for anything from 6 to 12 hours, you could only buy so many rolls of paper, which is why the happy pair on the photo carries a whole garland, as if it was a trophy hunted in a jungle.

But hey, bookstores were full of collected works of Marx, Engels, Lenin etc printed on paper, so you know…

@iron_bug

That’s why I like what they do in the mountains in Caucasus - a bottle of water 😄 When it’s sunny, you keep it in the sun, in winter you keep it near stove. And warn everyone politely it’s not drinking water.

@shuro