Poland’s upper house of parliament, the Senate, has unanimously adopted a resolution recognising Russia as a terrorist regime for its aggression against Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.
“The Russian invaders are terrorising the inhabitants of Ukrainian cities by bombing civilian targets,” reads the resolution. “Bandits in Russian uniform torture and murder prisoners of war and civilians in the occupied territories.”
🆕 #SenatRP podjął uchwałę o uznaniu władz Federacji Rosyjskiej za reżim terrorystyczny. 📜 pic.twitter.com/HWTUsrYIUw
— Senat RP 🇵🇱 (@PolskiSenat) October 26, 2022
“They kidnap Ukrainian children to raise them as regime Janissaries,” it continues, referring to the historical practice in the Ottoman Empire of stealing children from colonised territories and turning them into soldiers.
“We all know these acts of terrorism well from the history books. Europeans believed that they would never again be threatened with genocide and war crimes. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin and his apparatus of violence returned to the cruel practices of the Stalinist and Nazi regimes,” added the senators.
They called for the international community to ensure that Russia is defeated and that it is held to account for its war crimes at the International Criminal Court.
The opposition have a majority in the Senate and therefore control the chamber. But all the 85 members present for today’s vote – out of a total of 100 that sit in the chamber – from both the opposition and ruling camp voted in favour of the resolution.
“I am proud that the Senate unanimously adopted the resolution,” the speaker of the chamber, Tomasz Grodzki, told TVN24, “because what I saw in Bucha and Irpin [sites of alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine] remains in the memory forever. This is not a military war, it is brutal terror.”
In January this year, before Russia invaded Ukraine, the lower-house Sejm, where the government has a majority, passed a resolution condemning Russia for violating international law and undermining peace in Europe. It called for the international community to give more support to Ukraine.
Since Russia’s invasion, Poland has been among Ukraine’s strongest allies, providing military, humanitarian and diplomatic support, as well as hosting the largest number of Ukrainian refugees (currently estimated to number around one million).
In May, Lithuanian lawmakers unanimously adopted a resolution declaring Russia to be a terrorist state that is carrying out “genocide against the Ukrainian people”. In August, Latvia’s parliament designated Moscow a state sponsor of terrorism responsible for genocide in Ukraine.
Earlier this month, they were joined by the third Baltic state, Estonia, whose parliament declared Russia a terrorist state, reported Politico Europe. Poland has now become the fourth state to pass such a resolution
Among international organisations, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe also declared Russia a terrorist regime earlier this month.
The most important points of the resolution:
1. It is noted that the Russian regime is a terrorist. This is a powerful signal on a global scale, and it is another step to recognize Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.
— Oleksiy Goncharenko (@GoncharenkoUa) October 13, 2022
Main image credit: Łukasz Kamiński/Kancelaria Senatu
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
