Poland's Former PM Explains Why Warsaw Was Ready To Quickly Recognize Ukraine's Independence In December 1991

(MENAFN- UkrinForm) Jan Krzysztof Bielecki, who served as Poland's prime minister in 1991-during whose term Poland recognized Ukraine's independence-spoke about this in an interview with Ukrinform.

“This was very important, and it was in line with Solidarity's thinking dating back to the time of the first Solidarity revolution, which was interrupted by martial law imposed by the communists in Poland in 1981. So, since 1981, we had been thinking about freedom. But we never believed it would happen so quickly-first for Poland, and then for Ukraine,” Bielecki noted.

According to him, his meeting in January 1991 with Leonid Kravchuk, then Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, during the World Economic Forum in Davos was very important in this context.

“There, to my surprise, he raised precisely this question-about the possibility of Poland recognizing Ukraine's independence. At the time, I said that this was important to us, and if there were grounds for it, we would try to do so as quickly as possible,” Bielecki emphasized.

According to him, by December 1991, Warsaw was already prepared to act swiftly on the issue of recognizing Ukraine's independence.

“We were all on high alert back then. It was the weekend; other countries were probably resting, but we acted immediately,” noted the former Polish prime minister.

According to him, Polish Foreign Minister Krzysztof Skubiszewski and his deputy, Jerzy Makarczyk, played a key role in this process at the time.

Bielecki noted that Warsaw did not take into account a possible negative reaction from Moscow at the time, since there was already the precedent of Lithuania, where Moscow had initially tried to use force to block Vilnius's path to independence but ultimately backed down.

“So this is an old but relevant lesson for us: you cannot speak to Russia softly or pleadingly, because it will not agree to anything; you simply have to do your own thing,” the former Polish prime minister emphasized.

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He also stressed that since 90% of Ukrainians voted in favor of independence in the December 1991 referendum,“it was Poland's absolute duty to recognize the will of the Ukrainian people.”

As is well known, Poland was the first country in the world to recognize Ukraine's independence on December 2; Canada did the same that same day.

As reported by Ukrinform, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated that there are signs of serious preparations by Russia to escalate tension, and that the next seven to eight months could be critical for the security of Ukraine, Poland, and the entire region.

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