“Russia is an aggressor state, not a normal country” warns Polish president on Georgia trip

Russia is “not a normal country” but rather “an aggressor state”, Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, has warned during a visit to Georgia to mark its independence day. He called for “decisive action from the international community” against Moscow and supported Georgia’s accession to the EU and NATO.

On Wednesday, Duda visited the administrative border with South Ossetia, a breakaway region backed by Russia but recognised by most countries as part of Georgia.

“The activities carried out here cannot be accepted by the international community,” he said, speaking at the local EU Monitoring Mission, which is led by Polish envoy Marek Szczygiel, reports wPolityce.

Duda noted that in both breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Russian had “attacked” and “occupied” Georgian territory “to create quasi-national entities” and “destabilise” the region. He compared the situation to Russian occupation in parts of Ukraine.

The president promised that Poland will raise the issue during its presidency of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 2022 and at the General Assembly of the United Nations.

“Russia’s aggressive, imperial policy, which deprives people of their development…and leads to the destruction of countries and to warfare in which people die and are wounded, is a policy that cannot be tolerated by the international community,” said Duda.

Poland has been an advocate of Georgia’s accession to the EU and NATO. Speaking in Tbilisi at Georgia’s Independence Day celebrations, Duda said there was “enough room” in Europe and NATO to “accommodate” Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova.

He pledged that Poland would “always be a sure ally” in “promoting Georgia integration into Euro-Atlantic structures”.

Duda reflected on Poland’s own accession to NATO in 1997 and the EU in 2004, noting that reforms required “great effort” and the road “seemed to extend without end”. However, he said that “every step, even when calling for deep reform, was worth it”.

Turning to Russia’s expansionist stance in the region, Duda said that “no state in the 21st century” should be allowed “to continue to pursue imperial and aggressive politics without respect for international law”.

Duda also laid a wreath at a monument for former Polish President Lech Kaczyński, who garnered popularity in Georgia with a defiant speech at a rally in Tbilisi as Russia was mounting an invasion in 2008.

Today the president will also be meeting officials, including Georgia’s president, Salome Zourabichvili, and prime minister, Irakli Garibashvili.

Relations between Warsaw and Moscow have become increasingly strained amid disputes over the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and Polish support for the Belarusian opposition. After tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats in April, Russia’s ambassador to Poland, Sergei Andreyev, said that they had reached their “lowest since World War Two”.

The Russian envoy accused Poland of “deliberately seeking to destroy our relations, ties and cooperation in nearly all areas” as part of a “blatant Russophobic campaign”.

“Officials make hostile and even offensive remarks against Russia every day, the country’s leading political forces compete to show the toughest attitude to Russia,” said Andreyev.

Main image credit: Grzegorz Jakubowski/KPRP/Prezydent.pl

Maria Wilczek

Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.