Presidential elections in Poland and Ukraine

On May 19 at 16:00, an expert discussion titled “Presidential elections in Poland and Ukraine” will take place.

On May 18, the first round of the presidential elections was held in Poland. This marks not only the conclusion of the election cycle that began in the fall of 2023, but also the first presidential elections held during wartime in Ukraine (as the President of Poland also serves as the Commander-in-Chief).

What societal trends have emerged? Has the political crisis come to an end? How will relations with Ukraine develop? These are the questions the participants of the discussion will seek to answer.

– Valeriy Chaly, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Ambassador of Ukraine to the United States (2015–2019), Chairman of the board of the Ukraine Crisis Media Center
– Stanislav Zhelykhovskyi, PhD in political science, international relations expert
– Anatolii Kurnosov, analyst at the Center for political studies “Doktryna”, executive director of the NGO “Circle of European Dialogue”, expert of the Ukrainian-Polish media platform
– Yevhen Mahda, PhD in political science, director of the NGO “Institute of World Policy”
– Paweł Bobolowicz, media project Czarne Niebo (online)
– Svitlana Myalyk, journalist at Ukrainian Radio, contributor to Polish Radio for Ukraine (online)

Hello dear participants of today’s event in Ukrainian crisis media center. those who came and those who are here because we can see that you are seriously interested in this issue the president’s elections in Poland and that’s natural in terms of what country is considered that is Ukrainian partner and it’s a very important country for further safety issues and development of partnership and of course allies in NATO and EU one day hopefully that will happen. I would just like to say a few words at the beginning. First of all about our participants. I would like to say that this initiative was well came to Ukrainian uh crisis media center from Mr. Johan Makta who said that well it will be very correct thing to make this reaping without waiting for the results of the second tour because it will give the opportunity well not just to make some prognosis. I don’t think that we will be able today to answer the question of the exact numbers of the second tour but to show the tendencies that are already visible and also what we can expect. Stanislovski and Kosovo they are in this topic of the president’s elections because you know them as people who are international experts experts in political issues candidates of political sciences and to Konosov is in the doctrine he is engaged in different issues but in addition to foreign affairs also regional policy policy in terms of Poland and it’s a professional interest. So we have people here who are well in spite of um the fact that the attention from Polish elections were captured both like by Donald Trump and the agreements in Eastanbul like negotiations in Istanbul and also the conflict India and Pakistan. But nevertheless in any case there are people who were kind of following the events and I am very interested not just to hear about the numbers but it’s very easy to see the results but what does it mean what is the situation that’s very important uh the head of the board of Ukraine crisis media center maybe as the former head of Ukrainian and Polish president committee from Ukrainian side. It’s not the new issue for me like um the Poland and u also with the ambassador in Washington and Poland we were initiating certain issues. So even the period of elections certain topics just to make them as bilateral communication. Uh now I am not working in this field but I can say only from my previous experience that the president the position of uh the president of Poland in Poland it is much more for Ukraine. It means much more for Ukraine than maybe inside of Poland because Poland just like Ukraine it’s a parliamentary republic or parliamentary and presidential there’s a lot of similar things and similar in terms of that the president is um the head of the uh state these are the first elections in Poland during this where it’s the important moment. I think it’s very important to say a few words and I don’t think that my colleagues will touch upon these issues because it’s a general point of view and general picture as a matter of fact during the war in Europe assessment how like the right and left powers yeah they or like radical powers how they can impact the country the countries where there are elections Romania Yeah. And I have to mention with huge tension we were expecting the results of elections and it is good but the signals came and very serious from the other candidate who lost and he had Putin’s portrait over his head and the same like today we will discuss that we have such persons in Poland and Poland also showed some in my opinion dangerous tendencies. And well now the there’s big shift because they gained quite a lot of voices and the right well not the right but more like the I don’t know not the radical I won’t say that it’s more like the right sector. Okay. So as for the perimeter of Ukraine, their elections and in these elections will try to impose its um impact. Well, Russia is trying to cause some impact and to work via their agents. You heard about their Ukrainian claim the main department of uh intelligence of Ukraine. They were talking about their operation double ganganger that is imitating the websites of western like magazines, media and imitating websites or web pages in social networks of people who are trusted and via whom you can just give fake information or some fraud type of fraud. Well, yesterday I I don’t know whether it’s because of this or not, but in my case it’s a Facebook copy and then they start going to Germany, Poland, Romania and people who were calling from there and well they are trying to disseminate information under a fake account. So there’s a lot of examples maybe we will hear those but well for Ukraine first of all the process of Euro integration we are thinking about the 29 and like 2029 2030 when we think that the there will be aggravation of the situation maybe attack of Russia in the process of war with Russia they continues our neighbors these countries they are very important for us and I still want to say why were we considering like Romania, why we are looking at uh Poland because you know these countries that are impacting not just the amount of weapons supplied but also logistics and the production of weapons and localization. So there’s a lot of questions about their position and Romanians I would like to mention today. Well I have such an information we need to confirm that yet but the president of Romania has already told in one of his first information he will allow to hit the accidental so to say drones Russian drones that are used against Ukraine on their territory. So he will allow to hit these drones on their territory and we will wait for their actions and it is obvious that Poland is critically important country for us both in terms of some safety unions for the future and also in terms of the prognosises of today of military aspects as well because you all perfectly know that the so-called trainings Russian by Russian in 2025 file will happen at the Polish border and traditionally they are happening but there is just one moment when they were taking place before the invasion to Ukraine then territorially they were in a bit different location and now as far as I know for today the divisions that are formed they are formed closer to and not closer to the border with Ukraine I would like to remind you that like with Ukraine it’s not the topic of our discussion but when we had such situation with Ukraine. So it was the Russian military bases that were created that is the these Soviet bases and um Vagner were located there in kind of more located to this direction closer to to this direction with the railway to this direction and now it’s a bit different aspect of course yeah Russia etc but the intent ion we can say clearly Poland well we can’t say maybe that will be Ukraine but as of now we should not stop paying attention to it and it’s obvious that from the future like events and the political situation in Poland depends a lot on that for Ukraine obviously the the general position I would like to say that presidential elections That’s not it. There there are like parliamentary elections and the position of the country in general, the parliament especially not just same but also senate they are impacting a lot. So my colleagues know the details but even the moment that we saw like using Ukraine in the topic of Polish elections I truly hope that it will come to an end because all those blockades at the borders and all the moments that were using the issues of Ukraine they’re not helpful for sure. I truly hope that this period will come to an end and we will work with the Polish side with the key issues safety in Europe and we are all together under this hit Ukraine directly and Poland might be the next one. The second is our big opportunities in my opinion to unite our efforts for a joint role in future European safety together with Great Britain and Baltic countries. And the third moment is now economic situation. And actually for Ukraine and Poland for our people it is very important to use this potential of interaction in order to improve our just economic situation and a separate issue your integration it’s a separate issue because yeah Poland till recent time I haven’t heard the official claims like not to help Ukraine right these are not the claims that uh Poland is the advocate of Ukraine but still very good position session what I can say about some of the words of the candidates in these elections and the last thing I would like to mention is well still still the region is um connected in terms of information terms of people and what is happening in Romania is visible in Poland what is happening in Hungary is seen in Romania. By the way, you know, when mentioning Romania and the diaspora, Hungarian diaspora voted for a pro-Uropean candidate and the prime minister of Hungary supported well so to say the pro-Russian candidate. That’s very interesting situation and we will see how that will impact like the development of situation in Romania and Poland most of all on the elections in the future in Hungary and Sloakia. So the we are discussing much more than just the results of the first tour and our speakers today will allow us yeah to talk deeper about that than the things that you will find in the newspapers the about the results or what you will find and also we will have uh the expert journalist from Poland uh in the second part well we will come to closer prognosis and I will start with giving the floor on the situation on the elections to Mr. Steinlav. The floor is yours and the microphone is yours. So please tell us about the general picture. My question is what about the diaspora there? Because in Romania the diaspora has uh determined a lot in terms of development. So what about Poland? Thank you. Hello dear colleagues. Hello dear viewers, listeners, guests, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for inviting me to this event and thank you also to everyone for coming coming just to listen to analyze what’s happened in the neighboring country. And while I think that it’s already a good tradition to come here together in Ukraine crisis media center to discuss the Polish elections last time if I remember correctly we came together after the parliamentary elections and also we had very fruitful nice discussion because there were some things to consider and also we had we saw really like active uh elections and uh now Mr. Ambassador Mr. Lady Chali has mentioned that we can finally breathe out because this electoral cycle comes to an end. This marathon that lasted for almost two years. Even though again it depends on how we look at that because if the candidate from uh the powers will come to power. We can very carefully speak about that. When this marathon, electoral marathon comes to an end, then Poland might more or less also sign with relief both citizens and also just be engaged in some things of their own than being all in the elections. If the candidate from oppositional well the candidate who is supported uh by um opposition there’s risk that the electoral cycle not just won’t come to an end but also might start with the new power because some events might happen that will be far from let me say it so um calling being able to call uh the political situation at Poland’s table. Well, of course, I don’t want to agitate anyone to vote for somebody and um it’s up to the citizens of Poland to decide who is going to be the next president of their country. And it was mentioned correctly that actually for Polish people the main thing is the parliamentary elections because it’s parliamentary and presidential republic because depending on the results of the elections to legislative uh parties the coalition depends formation of coalitions and coalition is forming the government and the government is impacting most let me say so the processes of um external and internal nature in Poland. I think it is clear but still uh the position of the president of Poland is not the last one in the country and it has impact in particular. The president of Poland is the commander and chief and he has the right to call uh the uh council of defense and security and he has the right for the vet right for certain draft laws and in order to cope with the veto they need to get the three fifth of the voices and same and the lower pallet and now it’s quite problematic taking into account that coalition the so-called coalition of the 15th of October It’s not kind of the monolith and it consists of many political powers and yeah the governmental platform is the main one and it is actually fighting for their candidate to be the head of the republic but at the same time they have also like younger partners and each of these partners have their political ambitions. As of now we can see that there are positive signals that the candidates who could not join the second tour those that are now let us say so either the candidate who is Marshall Husseim and the leader of the movement in Poland he is supporting the leader of the party he was the candidate by the way it was prognosed that he and maybe go to the elections separate participant he is also supporting now so as of now we cannot say that something’s threatening the coalition, but we don’t know what will happen in the second tour. We will talk more about the second tour, but in any case, it’s important for us to see the whole picture. And indeed the situation is quite specific and as a matter of fact we can say that citizens of Republic of Poland has shown the yellow card actually to the mayor of Warso Rafski the candidate who went to the second tour and it’s the favorite one in this tour of elections and also Donald Tuska the same card and it means that In Poland there are problems and just like there are problems for the acting authorities who did not implement all the things that they promised and we see that there is certain dissatisfaction among the citizens. So as a matter of fact we can see that elections of the president of Poland is um there is a range of different moods in people and we the important moment when we are talking about some questionnaers that were conduct or surveys that were conducted a week ago approximately right when uh this um pre-election week was opening up and it seems that nothing extraordinary should happen and the prognosis were showing that yeah Chiskovski and Navroski will go to the second tour. However, the gap between them will be bigger than it is now because now the gap between the candidates is minimal like 2% according to the results published by the state election committee of Poland. And we can see that also there are other unexpected results like the Jagos Brown of fourth place and we know that it’s specific politician speaking mindly and he likes to conduct different type of performances in Poland in the parliament and he’s probably well known in every Polish family. However, unexpectedly, he received a fourth place and that means that together with Ramir Manson and the representative of the body who got the third place, they gaining more than 20% of voices and that’s serious threat for Rafkovski taking into account that he doesn’t have much support even the leaders like Shiman Havnish and Magda still he is not getting enough again we don’t know I will not now make the prognosis for the second tour but there is chance that he won’t win and that means that civil platform won’t be able to end the cycle that they the goal that they had to get um the full power in the country to implement the promises that took place earlier and that are taking place right now and again we will see what happens and uh for the Friday and justice now it is important to win at these elections because it will not just complicate the Donald Tusk how to manage the country but at the same time it will make it more complicated to conduct various criminal investigations against um right and justice and also you have to understand that it might be a Trump line to the next elections, elections to the parliament that have to happen at 2027 or even um the elections that will happen earlier because nobody excludes this possibility and that will allow them to mobilize their electors around them. So we are following the events and I think that the next two weeks will be very active. we will observe uh the statements of the candidates and other things that will take place but of course what I can say for sure is um to how the Polish people are prognosing it’s impossible to prognose that and also about the diaspora it’s an interesting aspect that traditionally Rafal Shushkovski has won the second elections in row because the last time 2020 it was just the same and uh he had 36% of support I guess but then the second slowman was 16%. It’s kind of a big gap with Chiskovsk but still the second place Navk because Narke is in the third place but in any case we see that there is tendency there is support of such ultra conservative let us say so that have the different vision than for example so platform so it is also a very interesting story and we will see what the second tour shows but I think that here we need to all the candidates. They need to just mobilize their electors and try to take the electoral support on them that was um divided in between the other 11 candidates that did not make it to the second tour. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the broad and detailed picture and for the for the fact that you didn’t forget the diaspora. But I would like you to ask you as an expert Ukrainian polish media form. Um Mr. Stanislav gave the picture more about the candidates. I’m very interested to hear what topics were touched upon like what was in the newspaper newspapers and um the discussions that were raised. So what might be highlighting now as the key issues? Yeah. In order to take well so to say the electors on their side but I don’t understand how at the same time you can take the young electors and the senior ones because you will have to take into account a lot of details but that is technical thing. Uh I’m not asking you about the technical things. I’m asking about the main topics. Yeah. What are they going to build on now? And what are the topics of European safety? That’s what we heard about Germany because it was discussed and during the elections that happened not that long ago by the way and Ukraine. How is all of that discussed and how you prognosed that will be discussed? Thank you. I’d say that in my opinion Like following the debates and the electional rhetorics we see that there are two traditional candidates and we could see that as a matter of fact that still was the war of the past. I mean well let us say so I won’t say that Rafael Shutokovski or Carl Navroski presented some new vision or some explosive like claims of the place of um Poland and architecture of safety of the European Union. So all of that lasted like this battle so to say in between them. It was around the old topics. It was around the like old discussions etc. I do understand that Rafal Shakovski he was having very careful campaign in my opinion and he was trying well maybe not to touch upon some uh very drastic topics so to say but maybe That is what was unhelpful for him because he was in the situation where he was representing the power in Navroski was in the situation where he was representing the opposition and just like always on this criticism it is always easier to get the better score. For me personally, there was lack of uh these important safety issues because it seems to me that both Polish society as well, they expect a more clear picture and vision of how the president who is the head of the state, who is the commanderin chief, how they are going to ensure formation of their army, how do they see in general eneral like the numbers more or less clear but what kind of um alliances do they see possible steps maybe the new form of regional safety that wasn’t there and mostly it was about the traditional so to say for Poland well not just for Poland topics the migration issues economic social issues is and um problems of their attitude to LGBT, abortions, etc., etc. Well, and also we could see again the traditional division into the pro-American, so to say, candidate and kind of yeah, pro- European. So Noski was more like pro-American and well kind of he he was insisting on strong bilateral relations with the USA and we could could see the visit of Navroski to the USA and his meeting with the President Donald Trump at the time when Rafikovski he was more focused on France Germany and these connections. So that is why we saw such situation that exists if you allow me just few more observations. We can see that many people were prognosing that these elections will become the end and maybe they will break the system of the two party system of uh domination of the two main parties. So many people were saying that it will end yeah before they have to go to the field as is just mentioned in Poland. But we see that two candidates 60% like still they are having 60% of um the electorate And we saw that 20% quite easily Manson and Brown took and we can say that it’s 1/5ifth of electors. It’s a very powerful thing in these moments regarding those elements of xenophobia that is there. Um not everybody has that. I would like to underline that. But still another moment if we take for example and we make the electorate of the different candidates such as Manson and Andrean Zambber and he is representing the the left party but like the anti-system party. So jointly 55% of young electorate voted for them from 19 to 29 years old. So we are saying that it’s a huge field for further parliamentary elections and we have to watch that as well and draw some conclusions. Yeah. So I was also surprised. Um I expect a bit less but it is clear that even though Nroski has lost but he’s lost mathematically. Yeah. Now he is under like uplift of what was not shown but in all the researchers. So these are the issues of researchers how this sociology is working in total. Thank you. Thank you. Well, actually from the two speeches we understand the general picture and we touched upon the issue of the new parties and new faces. I’d like to ask the director of Institute of World Policy. Yeah. Mr. Mahda Yan Mahda uh to make a bridge of our in our briefing. What did this new picture show us? Is that moving like more like is that more brown? Is it as mentioned in Poland? Maybe whether you agree or these are some new moments or or they are totally not new for us. Maybe how to win the elections more on populist positions than more rational even though elections in Romania could show us that yeah doctors of sciences can still win the elections. It is still possible and yeah what I started with I know that in comments you mentioned we still have hybrid war during elections or everything stops when there are negotiations in Istanbul the war stops and in negotiations in Poland Russian attacks to European countries please. Thank you Mr. Valetti. I wanted to joke first that if in the third time we will come together to discuss Polish um elections, we can just go and just apply for the card of the Polish citizen. But I would like to pay attention to different thing. We are partners. Uh our countries are strategic partners. But during like in the latest years we have political asynchronization in Ukraine due to obvious reasons. There are no elections and in Poland we could see the whole election cycle and what we by the fact that we are observing we are showing our interest to the things that are happening in Poland and we are showing that the elections are also interesting for us and we have to treat that seriously. By the way, if you are talking about a hybridness, the topic that is on the surface of course is the issue of impact of um L strategy. And here we have to say about this set has no attitude to due to voling tragedy. But the very fact that excumation was conducted. It was coming from provocation on um the mountain. So it was the first case when we can recall that polish in Ukrainian society well of course not without the saggments reaction of which will be always prognosed but still there are such facts back on the 6th of May of digitalization of Poland said that there were attempts of intrusion to Polish elections and yesterday this information about the double ganganger information. Well, it was in Ukrainian sources, Polish sources. And I think that we have to understand that Poland for the Kremlin is not just one of the main enemies, but also the main place of their hybrid efforts. Here we have to stress on the fact that as of today Poland is one of the main transition points and the past how the weapons are supplied to Ukraine not just weapons that is so accordingly the situation of elections in Poland and Romania it was imposing serious threat communications for Ukraine as the parties that is taking part in war and it is extremely interesting for us because the elections give some interesting results. I will say that the fact that Mata Matak um the candidate who appeared who got uh less But his task in my opinion was just to appear in the list of the candidates. I call these elections like you know elections for those who are not superstitious 13 candidates but he just went there in order to mark the fact that today about what today is happening in Polish authorities. Yeah. Just to say that I want to ask you if possible while you’re listening to yourself in parallel. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’m trying to establish the contact with our colleagues. Yeah. I just want to ask the following thing. Uh yeah, he he appeared but it’s not possible to appear just for the elections. this 100,000 signatures. So it means that somebody were giving these 100,000 signatures. Isn’t it the test for the next period that in this way they can introduce different candidates in the campaign? Even those that were unknown before the financial resource by the way in Poland, if I read it correctly, still they cannot figure out where he take these 100,000 signatures. Yeah, I think that this is the issue that deserves the attention of Polish special services first of all because it’s the moment indeed 100,000 signatures in the country where they have approximately 30 million of um electorate well it’s not that much however it’s significant number and I think this demonstration of the fact how actually Russian special services can impact the situation. All together with that we have to recall the so-called active measures that as of today are observed in were observed in Poland and for example the visit of Donald Tusk a week before the first tour of president elections and his um active participation at the coalition was also related to the future sure presidential elections, but I think that also the decision on closing the Russian consil ship in Poland a few days before the elections, it was also in a sense very important. So Poland went through these elections as a society. which is divided. Each fifth person voted for populists, each 10th as Anatoli mentioned for the left non-sistic left powers. So this turbulence is observed and the gap between the candidates will make them you know do quite a rapid movements I think and we will all observe that in these two weeks. Thank you. We will have the opportunity after this to discuss the issues and Mr. Johanna also not just for your speech but also that you helped to yeah unite Poland words. So to us sana Malik they are in Poland and I think that they felt this possible elections more than we did how that was happening. So I would like to I think you heard the beginning of the discussion. I would like that in your information for a Ukrainian and international audience, take the moment whether it was felt in Poland, the importance, the historical nature of these elections and how much should we be worried about the results and the moods like where the pollen is going and I will come back to the topic that we’ve discussed already. What topics are now most interesting for Polish people? How they are making their choice based on what? I would like to start with Mr. Bablovich so he can start telling us about that and Slana Malik she she has told us a lot about Poland you know the Ukrainian radio but it’s not the conclusion but like your general opinion Mr. Babalovich please. Hello. Uh I was observing the first and second elections from Ukrainian where I live every day. So the perspective of what I see also in the information I’m the participant of Polish life. It’s a very interesting topic. how important it the elections in Poland are because earlier we were talking about the systemic difference because the president of Poland as you mentioned he is not a strong as strong institution as like in Ukraine constitution so here there’s huge systemic difference and actually the president of Poland and we’ve seen that in the last years when he is related to very uh strong power like during the times of peace and he is part of that environment. So as a matter of fact he can be the person who can well actually he can even not be present in public space he can be just the executive of what is happening in political committees and in the government in parliament. However, when we look at the end of um the cadence of Angel Duda when the other political team came into the parliament and came to power the position of the president even though he doesn’t have many opportunities it’s very important because he has the opportunity to block certain initiatives of the parliament and the government and also for example they can have certain negotiations or um certain dialogue talks about the foreign policy for example or when we are talking about safety issues. We’ve seen that and it doesn’t always work for the benefit of our state of our country. The fact that the president doesn’t have the big legal and systemic opportunities does not reduce the importance of the elections and we can see that more than 67% of electors who went to vote and it means that Polish people are interested in these elections and they are important for them and we could also see that on the uh political discussions that were there in the elective campaign and it is also related to your uh second question, right? What was the basics of the political negotiations? What were the topics and political campaigns? And most interesting thing is when we consider these campaigns, we understand that even though the main discussions are between the liberal and conservative teams, but we can go really deep into these notions what is liberalism etc. in modern politicians of Poland for modern politicians of Poland. it we will try to form formulate it more or less. So we can see that uh the topic was not really in line with the conservatism and everything because there is no even high vision of the future. So it’s not about the big vision of the future because of course uh there will be some issues related to how the polish participation in the European Union should look like or also the um ecology, ecological uh policy of the European Union and all the topics that emerge related to uh the society, what is observed in the society and some things regarding the rights of women or understanding who’s a man or who’s a woman. These things they emerged but mainly they appeared in criticism in criticism of competitors and how we imagine the future of Poland in the EU and the than Poland and safety structures and Poland in uh relation to the neighbors. But it was more the criticism of their opponent. the criticism regarding how now they are working and how they used to use their powers etc and looking for compromise for the political opponents in the last days mostly we saw that clearly so in between the two main candidates many things actually were not mentioned till the end that even what even the candidates think about that so it was not spoken till the end but people were adding like something was not said but people added that from how they behave and that is about man who was trying to show that he is again like he is the main candidate and he is using the different paths to implement like to to life in Poland that he is not the candidate who was trying like to get the system and Brown was doing the same he was trying to prove that in Poland for many years there are like two polar system and he’s from the different side. So he’s coming as someone new. So what it was not that important what he will say because he’s the important of our future but it was important to show that he is not the system that exists in Poland for like 30 years. Well, of course, the topic of anim immigration also was raised for the candidates who were um based on nationalistic policy and that actually was like almost all the candidates had that even though he went to the second tour of elections. So it might be a big surprise that even liberal candidate um in a certain moment his campaign had anti- Ukrainian maybe not anti- Ukrainian because it’s not mentioned well but Ukrainian topic. Yeah. And um conservative um some addition. So he was the initiator to delay the payments of social aid for Ukrainian migrants in Poland and that was very unclear like how can that be told by liberal candidate. Well, of course earlier the conservative candidates they were saying such things quite often and based on that they were forming part of their campaign mainly unfortunately again we have to come back to the topic the candidates who are really radical [Music] and together with Jagos uh Brown but they had many voices however they were uh present so we we and say like like one or less than 1% of voices. Well, of course, then people are not satisfied with this uh candidate because he has really little support. And what you mentioned is very important that the support, right? How did he get 1,000 of signatures in order to participate in general in the elections? So antimigrational policy and nationalistic also uh requires a strong presence in the elective campaign and he had almost 15% of voices. What is important here when we look at the main result in um this conservative public conservative uh candidates and liberal candidates I would like to mention that it is not really in line with the ideological basics of these candidates. But when we look at that and that is very important in order to have the prognosis of uh what can happen in the second tour of elections. We will see that this conservative candidate and Carol Nodsky can now count on that it is more than 50% in general of all the voices and Rafael Cheskovski can look at a bit more than 41% of voices and that’s very interesting because it means that the political formation that is now with power um and the so platform and the political partner they based on these first tours then they didn’t lose the legitimacy of representing the interests of most um citizens of Poland and the next issue and I won’t be the optimist that there won’t be next elections in Poland soon because the question is do they have the mandate to represent the interest of majority of um Polish people Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to clarify one moment because now you raised this topic. We will discuss that next. So it means that it might impact the sustainability of coalition coalition may be changed and then you think that there is direct path to next elections that the reformatting cannot happen. Yes, because there are many different factors in coalition but we see really weak result of the speaker of Polish parliament and like the 5% it means that he has no support at all and it’s one of the very important people in coalition. So like our agrarians, we don’t see these voices and there is a question in the coalition who still remains in this coalition and how do they prognose what’s going to be next? they can’t say like that’s it like we need to lead the coalition and I’m sure that part of them will say that and we were looking at the headlines of internet media and we see we will see in two weeks where the the coalition exists and it is very important whether Rafoskovski will win what is the result that he gets or maybe the Carl Nozzky will win or the competitor’s victory will mean some union coalition or maybe just parts of this coalition mostly will just be in Poland because there is cooperation with the conservative uh party and they will say like that’s it we understand that there are no prospects and we need to change this parliamentary like what is in the parliament and we can think about the new government. It is very interesting and very important. Yeah. At the end, I would like to ask a very brief question to you. Um, as far as I understand, you voted, right? Where were you in KU? Um, as far as I understand, we had no voting. Where did you vote? Well, I will be honest that I the first time in all my life I’m voting since 1990 or 1991 in free like the election process election process is very important but it’s the first time when I did not participate in the elections because unfortunately Poland did not ensure the voting for people who are in Ukraine like Polish citizens who are in Ukraine it’s not serious because you could have elected different places where you can safely organize the process. So I just simply don’t understand why it is happening in such way. It’s not just about me but also about some well maybe these are not thousands of people but citizens have the right to participate in elections and um foreign units. In the second tour I’m going to vote in my city in Lublin and I will be there at the time. It would be good for the say not forget about their citizens in this situation as well. And if we are so scared that we are afraid to make elections in Ukraine, then we also have to mention that in our society, right? That the situation is so difficult. So maybe then even some candidates wouldn’t have told different nonsense about Ukraine. Thank you. And as a person who’s been working with the embassy as an ambassador, well, of course, it is not sold on the place, but there are general safety rules that indeed in the conditions of war, Ukraine is in war. So, I’m not confident that even Ukraine would allow to risk the lives of their people. So, it’s complicated safety issue. However, I didn’t ask this question because of that because it’s like now you’re a hidden resource, electoral resource for the next voting. Yeah, it’s also good as we can see. But actually this hidden resource as you are calling those people who didn’t go to the first tour of elections, it is not big. Well, maybe somebody will think how to engage them. But we know that the second tour of elections in Poland, so um the number of people was usually increased. I think that actually it might be bigger because when we have such very strong like different things like the polar situations it might cause the necessity like yeah I will go etc. To be honest I was also approaching it in such way like yeah it is hard for me now to leave but in the second tour I will be present. Yep. So such situation might hap might happen and we also have to understand that for example when looking at the electorate of Miren and understanding that this electorate will be the one that would like to and Cheskovski right here this conservative electorate. There is a lot of people and they might have different economic reasons and they might be looking for some communities with Jesus but and Manson also can say that not till the end he will say like well there is no one to vote for etc. It’s just Bosak his vice speaker of same in confederation. So as a matter of fact, it might happen that part of the electorate who went to the first tour, they won’t see their candidates in the second tour. So there’s serious problem for people who consider that they are they were voting like anti- system. So they are representing this. If you didn’t vote for them in the first tour, so why should you vote in the second? And I think that radical aggravation of the campaign will happen in Poland in order to prove how important it is for voting and how like different big things are there. So of course the candidates that well didn’t didn’t pass in the first they will be used and they will be forced to support them candidates. I’m interested like who wants to have support from Jagosh Brown and won’t be ashamed of such a support. Um yes so they will even take the voices from Jagosh Brown. Maybe many people are just shocked that he received more than 6% of his voices with such rhetoric um like really nationalistic and anti-uropean and like anti-semitist. to more than 1 million voices. Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. And you maybe raised some very important topics for our assessment, for our prognosis as well. But before I will ask the participants to say yeah don’t think that we forget Sana she was calling me so many times for me to call for me to say about the elections in Poland. I’m not such a good specialist as Slana. So Nasan I would like to ask you you know we changed the roles. So not as a correspondent of Ukrainian radio but as a person now in Polish radio but as a person who is in the air I am coming back to this issue all the time the Ukrainian topic the topic of Ukrainian and Russian war is that all so far from discussions even at the election so it was not discussed so actively in Poland or it is good what did you here being there as Ukrainian. I’m interested in the opinion, you know, Ukrainian topic doesn’t mean only about Ukraine. I mean war, I mean European safety in general and maybe some joint actions of Poland and Ukraine. So these topics well in addition to the things that you want to tell us. Hello dear colleagues answering your questions regarding the topics that are being discussed in particular Ukrainian topic because I’m cooperating with the polish radio for Ukraine and we made before the elections the special project which was called elections in Poland Ukrainian context and actually in this project we were trying to analyze the topic of Ukraine how important it is for the candidates and uh for the elections and in general and I will tell you the conclusions that actually this campaign for Poland. It is um thematic in a sense. I I will um agree with the previous speaker. There was no central topic like international or economic topic. That is we were talking about some internal issues. The issues of Poland as in a bulb you know issues of abortions, LGBT etc. And Ukrainian context was also mentioned and it was usually mentioned regarding the war of Russia against the Ukraine. However, taking into account Polish safety for Poland, it is very important so that Russian troops, Russian soldiers not to come to the border with Poland. So Ukrainian safety is important for um well in terms of their safety as for Ukrainian factor that is the issue of refugees and it’s not really good for Ukraine because as a matter of fact the key candidates if we are talking about Rafkovski um it was mentioned he also took this topic that Ukrainian refugees in Poland who are not working and mostly we know these are women with children and part of them maybe are not working because 85 almost 90% of refugees in Poland they are working legally they are paying taxes to Polish budget they are raising Polish economy so for refugees with children who are not working they couldn’t get 800 plus this is a program I mean the child every month can get 800 slotty uh it’s like 9 10,000 reven Yes. So it’s a very significant support for families of military migrants those who are with children and women cannot work. So I was at a press conference of Profuskovski uh before the elections and uh I was having this exclusive blitz interview. I was asking him about that why so he was not giving clear answer. He just said that the women who have many children who have children with disability and they cannot work. So actually they can count on some different type of support like more individual I would say. uh but this topic at 100 plus for Ukrainian refugees and the fact that politicians want to take away this only aid because um out of the cash aid for refugees is the only one that exists in Poland. Uh in a sense it is um discriminational because other migrants and refugees from other countries they can hope for like that without any other conditions whether mothers are working or not. children are getting these 100 plus. So this topic was raised and another topic that could um have emerged and we were waiting for that. It’s a historical topic taking into account the agreements between the governments of the two countries between the ministry of culture of Ukraine and Poland that um search works have started as you mentioned in Pushnik. This topic was taking off the electoral campaign and certain candidates could not use this because there is nothing to speak about because the topic of historical conflict um is being resolved step by step and it was very correct decision of Ukraine to hear agree with Poland and to start the search works and exumation at Pushnika. What is happening right now in Poland? I would say that now the experts and journalists and everybody is actively discussing the official results of the first tour and the results were announced um by the committee in um Poland quite quickly today at 11 uh worth of time and well they are not really different with exit pose. So the results were prognosed that the leaders will be the two candidates um and mayor of Warso and the independent candidate uh from like Karen Rosski who is supported by right and justice. The only thing that was well interesting that I say so and not expected is that they will have such a little difference in between them and I think that uh certain people are disappointed because they were hoping um that they will have four or five% uh difference with Navodski but also they expect that the third place will um have the Manson um the third place and all the Social surveys were approving that but social surveys were giving him like 11 to 13% he took more he took 15 at the elections and he has mentioned it’s the biggest success and this it’s the record support and he was conducting the campaign starting from September it was just few million uh zlotties this campaign but um his people were actively using internet and Tik Tok And step by step they were taking voices from Shir Halonia etc. and their party became very popular among youth and taking into account that the confederation is on the political all of Poland like the third powers. Menson is talking about the parliament elections. He is talking about the big future of uh the confederation uh party and for Ukraine I think it’s not just a call but it’s anti- Ukrainian party and they are against the payments to refugees. They are against Ukraine and NATO and EU. They are very skeptical in terms of Russian war against Ukraine and we know the claims that Manson was making and his statements. So we need to think beforehand and we need to plan our strategy. Another unexpected thing during these elections just as you colleagues mentioned and I think that this is unexpected for Poland as well because everybody’s discussing that finally that fourth seat is Jakos Brown the candidate um with the extreme like right and pro-Russian views. He got more than 6% and that is like one more than 1 million of voices and this is very significant even though according to the social surveys he had to be like the sixth after Shiman Halonia and after the candidates from new Zhan and [Music] the surveys gave him 4% and everybody knows that Brown is well known by his like pro-Russian statements and uh he used to be the member of confederation but he left the party after the party has officially supported the other candidate Manson and now he’s the head of the confederation of uh Polish crown and till March this month they were included a confederation of freedom and independence this is how this is what the full name of the party is and all his scandalous claims and all his scandalous actions um like the candles and same and taking off the Ukrainian flag and that he was burning the flag of the European Union and that he is saying all the time that we need to stop benderization in Poland and very bad feedback about refugees that they um like brought some illnesses to Poland. It’s impossible to hear to listen to and I think that Polish society nowadays is starts to think why um Brown has such results and step by step Paul in a polish society xenophobia is kind of blooming anti-semitism because if we think if we count then Manson and Brown together they get 21% and it’s quite significant if you ask why polish society voted for Brown. Then in my opinion, well, part of people just share his opinion and Brown is very emotional. He is radical. People like that. People like the fact that what I heard from the people I know that he was mentioning is his point of view. He is not changing his position. Even though nowadays in the network there’s video like 10 years ago where Brown is without his beard and he’s talking about cooperation with Ukraine. That is totally different. Brown I think that this is the case when the person the politician and um his place is determining his position and his views. another candidate, the pro-Russian again it he was mentioned here uh he is openly supporting Putin but he he’s got like 06 or something like that so he’s among the last ones and that’s a benefit for us but I think that the task of the candidate was not to gain the voices but just to test the Polish society in terms of perception of um Russia and the crumbling points of you and Kremlin leaders etc etc. I was surprised for example that the candidates from new Samberal who are supporting Ukraine they received just little number of voices five and 40% and Shim Halonia who has very sustainable position regarding Ukraine he is not really well supported so he has like 499 so what’s going to happen with this political project of his the time will show but Shiman Halonia uh quite calmly perceived his result and he already encouraged the electors to vote for Rafael Shaskkovski. What’s next? Two weeks of active electoral campaign. The candidates have already started preparing themselves for the second tour actively and Acheskovski has went into the pre-election cycle and it is very important for him now to collect the electorate and also I think to focus on the vision of the future of Poland because all these internal issues they exist. However, what is the future of Poland? what is the role of Poland and what is the place of Poland in the European Union and geopolitical situation and as for the war of uh Russia against Ukraine we don’t quite understand that not quite well and I think that it is very important here that he maybe is more loyal to Ukrainian military migrants in Poland because Ukrainian women with children that is the most vulnerable category of citizens here in Poland land. As for Cal Navroski, uh so people who are going to vote for him, they are hoping for the voices of confederation and um Manson himself, he mentioned that his electors they are free to make their decision. However, in the nearest time he will advise people who to vote to vote for and it also depends on how many people will come because here it was record 67%. In 1995 I think it was 64 65 and here even like the weather is raining and the cold and well nothing stopped people from coming. to see that Polish people are very active in their political views and in support. But that was in the first tour. We’ll see what will happen in the second tour. But many people are saying that they want like the um people from Poland I know they don’t want to have the monopolization of power in Poland and some are saying that they want this fight to end this political fight that is happening all the time and for Poland to start living normal life. Yeah. No matter like not to have these political fights but just to focus people can focus their powers on the prospects and strengthening Poland. Uh, Premier Tusk is saying that um, ifski will win then his team will be strengthened like he and the minister of foreign affairs. Mr. Sikski and Skovski it will be one of the strongest teams and they will be able to take Poland to a really high level. So we are very interested how the events will happen and maybe what will be the black PR because I think that everybody has heard that because it’s a like virus topic in Poland regarding the um Kavroski we are talking about the apartment and he uh sorry being like caregiver of the person who has yeah we will not repeat that because we will have to give you the floor about each of the candidates then to speak. So thank you very much Mr. Lana just finalize your thought. Yes. So maybe some information about Mr. Rokoski. So we are waiting for the second tour and hoping for good results especially for Ukraine. Thank you colleagues. Thank you to the citizen of Ukraine. I think we should not you know says the present moments and thank you very much. Thank you very much because um such picture from Warso and from to Warso and then cave. Yeah we see really exhaustive picture of the elections and actually there were a few questions you know very interesting. I would like now the panelists or maybe it’s Dany love um or mystery of hand or like three minutes for each of you just say the things comment on the things that you heard first of all like of course the prognosis right uh related to the configuration of power in general um how whether you assume that there will be change in the coalition and other election ctions um and well either separately or each one of us Mr. Han said a very important topic that for us for Ukrainians uh lack of such mechanism you know we it’s kind of simulation of our internal elections and I’m interested in the opinion of everyone the model Polish model of the elections can it be maybe Ukrainian can be the projection of the polish or we will have totally different story why because the processes political are very similar and the form of state management is just the same Mr. said that your president is different in terms of constitution. Well, if you allow me, I would like to say that according to our constitution is the same. Yeah. It’s the the matter of the fact we have different because we have martial law and we have war and that is why like the president also came that from the system you know and he is controlling the parliament but now our president’s office is controlling everything. Yeah. So according to the constitution it shouldn’t happen this way actually. Yeah. but also stronger position. Stronger position even though as a matter of fact really it is coming from something else. Yeah, you’re right. Yes, I saw and I communicated in person with the presidents of Poland on different stages and you know u maybe the fact that we don’t see well maybe you not see that in Ukraine and Poland but um in meetings abroad everything is perceived differently. the president of Poland just like other countries abroad it’s the face of the state in general and it’s totally different attitude just like here in Ukraine we are treating differently the president sometimes in terms of internal issues and we are looking at the position of Ukraine abroad. So I think the same story is there in Poland and I think that no matter who will be elected by the uh Polish people it will be the new stage and some external policy will unite them but it will be the choice of pollen and here it’s what I mentioned you know first of all I see like literally the two words I see that you didn’t manage to somehow change the situation in organized conduct elections in organized way but I haven’t heard anything about the big like violations by the way it means that it was done really well unfortunately in Ukraine we don’t even have the mechanisms like that even close and yeah we cannot conduct the elections even if we would like to neither like the OECD observers but I would say that indeed we cannot like just open the elections here to our fear and to our risk because it is Ukraine which is responsible for the safety right it’s the country where the buildings are located and we cannot even ensure the safety of our own elections so we have to understand these issues and your experience is very important for us and the experience of Romania in terms of diaspora and well yeah uh from the words of special I hear that there are some questions that can be asked to Polish police stations because I think that um citizens of Poland of Ukrainian origin will um gain bigger role also during the elections and all these issues. Yep. Please. I just want to touch upon the topic of 800 plus and the future of Ukrainian citizens. The issue is that the number of Polish citizens of Ukrainian origin, those who are there like the work migrants and war were migrants, it is relatively not high. So the candidates didn’t even touch upon the topic. Yeah. Approximately what we are talking about. How many Ukrainians are now citizens of Poland? dozens thousands dozen of thousands um in the format well not more than 100 thousands for sure and maybe Paul knows better we need to understand that these are two different things people who came as migrants after the full scale invasion and they did not get the citizenship they have no rights to participate in elections we are talking about different types of people who have Ukrainian origin it is less those who have Ukrainian origin from the pre-war times these are totally different issue and of course they have no impact on the reality so the issue like Ukrainian the rights of migrants etc it was not and it will not be directed at the electors from Ukraine because we almost have no such people and we only have those aiming at how Polish people are perceiving that. Well, of course, if Ukrainians will remain in Poland and they will go through the very complicated process of getting a citizenship, very complicated process, we can say that it might be of some importance and um that dream of like um different politicians. But now in reality doesn’t play a role and like there are no big groups of Ukrainians who are voting, not big numbers. Yeah, I totally agree with that. It’s just Mr. Vali was encouraging us to talk about the prospects and I would say that 15% of men they can speed up the naturalization of Ukrainians because we will be honest that approximately 2 million Ukrainian citizens who are nowadays in Poland is potential electoral resource for the future parliamentary elections. for the future of president elections for those who are going to consider that right now because Ukraine doesn’t have the program how to return their citizens and that’s a very significant moment that is a moment we have to bring to people’s attention so that people cannot be the ones who are hang in the air well maybe not in the material condition but lack of financial support in addition to program 800 plus is well making most Ukrainian migrants there in Poland work. But political status, I think that it will also exist and the need of being citizens. Well, again, it’s not a secret anymore because Mr. Androsko wrote about that. So, Peter Andra Sacho has gone 650 kilometers in order to vote the elections of the Polish president. And I think that it is the example in order to give Ukrainian citizens in Poland well just to open the discussion you know with this number of layers of Ukrainian diaspora like post war and the first one and the present one I mean post war after the second world war etc. Yeah, it’s a separate big topic. I don’t think that we will be able to discuss that right now and I have my own opinion regarding that and I think yeah that’s just my opinion but I think that 3 years it’s enough uh not to pretend for some social payments but to work you know and that’s a different aspect. The only thing is um what we have between the countries it’s not even about the refugees from war but Ukraine and Poland have signed a range of documents um in order to ensure income period without war to ensure the rights for Polish people in Ukraine and Ukrainians in Poland. That is we have to expand this basis in order to have the mutual standards you know that are in line with each other. So Ukraine is helping Polish people here and Polish people help um Ukrainians there. It’s about the people who are retired about like families with men and children etc. So there are certain results and I think that if we will consider that seriously we will find a lot of solutions even without the payments. I don’t want Ukrainians to be beggars to beg for money. You know, Ukrainians are now building the European Poland. As a matter of fact, and many things because it is in Poland and many Ukrainians are working. How many billions of money is invested into Polish economy in three years? So here we are just saying thank you to Poland that yeah I I don’t hear these words like you came here etc. It turned out to be a mutually beneficial situation but the policy that was mentioned from time to time. I’m thinking like it can be solved with the historical problems right we can also solve it here and I would like to end on this how the impact of politicians and the government is important for let us say so just to come down some negotiations international negotiations yeah we can have significant significant impact here Mr. is love your conclusion. Three minutes please. Yeah. Your conclusion. Yep. Miss Vana um you were speaking a lot. You raised a lot of topics and we will give you the floor at the end. You know Miss Vana I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Now we will Yeah. Okay. Just say what you haven’t said. Yeah. Um as for Ukrainian families who became like refugees, they are getting 100 plus. So it is better for them not to get that. But this support is provided to all the citizens of Poland and to everybody who came, all the migrants who have children, children who children are getting this aid and Ukrainians are not excluded from that. So I think that the Polish politicians are speculating on the topic. It is not the correct thing. But to take this opportunity from Ukrainians, yeah, we shouldn’t do that because it is given to everybody. No exclusion, citizens of Poland and non-citizens of Poland. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I don’t mind that from happening, but I’m just saying that it can be taken to the range of agreements, not just this complicated issue. Still, we are talking about the president’s elections and the topic is really broad. By the way, not enough attention is paid. It should be done more. Thanks for the participants because they are focusing on Poland. Please Mr. Stein Love. Yeah, indeed it’s a very important stage for this country. We were mentioning that and I agree with you because I was mentioning that as well that we are observing the polarization of society in Poland and it is clear because this difference um right for justice and that still platform they still continue and I think that Poland was saying this paradigm for a certain time as for other political powers I think that there is risk that Poland can at least a part of the population which is more conservative um they can become radical because we understand that um the Confederation of Freedom and Independence they are pretending to have the leadership in Poland and uh they would like to to continue with this um uh party and somehow they are like similar in many aspects and now we will see actually what is the direction that abolish policy will move in because we can say that yeah the fate of the whole country might be at stake the political uh issues what is the vector for development and what are the consequences for all of us because Poland for us is very important lobbyist of our interests and Poland is a very powerful country of the region the country that included Lublin triangle initiative of the three seas etc and now they are um also in the council of the European Union so it’s a very important country they can be well not the advocate maybe but the lobbyist of our interests in the western world and yeah of course we wouldn’t like such processes to happen that will make uh the Polish government and Polish society more radical because everybody will suffer from that because the enemy doesn’t sleep you know and we know that Russian Federation is observing the situation it’s about Poland in Romania and also the neighboring other neighboring ing countries such as Muldova uh and um Islakia and Hungary etc. So this is the fore post of western world and if you divide that then Russian Federation will achieve their aim their goal they will be able to open their path to Europe and we remember how that all ends we don’t need um you know hundreds of years of um Russian shoes we don’t need dozens of years of dictatorship we’ve survived these times already unfortunately such politicians as brown and hands and they well let us say so they are very beneficial tool consciously or unconsciously in hands of Russian dictator and Russian state and this Moscow Federation that is dreaming of having a new division in the world. So I think that we the healthy political powers need to work with their electorate, give the truthful information and make everything possible not to have any negative scenarios because it might be too late. We can see that from some of our neighbors like Slovakia and Hungary especially Hungary because it is a late stage. We can say that and maybe the future elections in uh Hungary will change situation slightly but now it is too early to say as for the Poland not everything is lost because there’s a lot of chances that Poland will continue existing both as a independent pro western country and democratic country and they will build good relationship with Ukraine because our nationalities are probably one of the those who suffered from the hundreds of years of occupation and for the activity that was conducted by Russian state and different historical epox. And I don’t think that we should speculate on the doubtful pages of history. We should give it to scientists to narrow specialists and our people need to build a mutual cooperation because we we we are the case of European civilization you know thank you very much for such ending and we will give the floor again because he it’s picture of bilateral relations but still we are talking about elections. Yeah. As for the prognosis, it is really hard to have some prognosis and I think don’t think that somebody will make the prognosis. They were really unexpected and the results of the first tour were unexpected and some people are saying that well maybe Rafal Shaskkovski will win with the 2% advantage but it is still unknown from the other side. ofki can also partially counter on the midmanson and the part that is an economic field for liberalization during the last elections I would like to remind that the voices of basak and also representative of federation they divided 50/50% went for duda and 49 for cheskovski so now like 10 12 15% I don’t know How many still can he get as for the projection of Polish model for Ukraine? I by the way regarding the lists u because it’s a very interesting situation as well because many polish experts are raising the topic indeed like where did he get these 100 thousand of signatures if even if such a number of people didn’t vote for him it’s about the database of electors and how protected those are and the verification of signatures because in Ukraine it is the same right because the um signatures were in written and the signature of the person um was there but actually nobody has conducted verification of signatures. So now in Poland it’s about like maybe uh via such system as um some systems to verify whether those people are giving their signature so that certain candidate can come to elections. As for the other segment um of um yeah polish model to Ukrainian we saw a big role of nonsistic electorate and here very interesting thing if we are talking about our Ukrainian diaspora and not just in Poland but abroad in uh general because Romania for example like most are like pro-Russian candidate those Romanians who were living abroad like 9 million those who are in Romania and 6 million I guess um are the electors who are not living in Romania. So if we are talking about the further fate of Ukrainian diaspora yet is divided into those who came before the invasion after the invasion and if we are talking via the prisma that in Ukraine nowadays we are considering the idea of having like multiple double citizenship in the future we can also have such a situation that our Ukrainians who will have the citizenship of Ukraine but they will live abroad they will they also might vote in the future for non-sistic candidates. And first of all, it is really hard to investigate, hard to control, and hard to impact them. And the last thing, it’s about the powers of the president. Well, in Ukraine, we have one difference that in Ukraine still the minister of defense and the minister of foreign affairs, it’s a president’s quote and in Poland, it’s a quote of the prime minister. Thank you. Yeah, we have more differences. However, uh nevertheless, the general assessment we had. So, dear colleagues from Warso or maybe our colleagues um who are Yeah. to the west from KU. Okay. I gave you more time consciously significantly more time. If you want to briefly speak about your prognosis or something that was not mentioned yet, then please Mr. Pablo. Yeah. I would like to say that is more to the west than my lublin below you know so you have to understand the nuances geographical nuances when we are talking about west and east yeah we won’t phrase the historical topics you know no it’s not historical I’m talking about Ukrainian uh state which is in the west and it is a very good and geographical understanding I would like to say about certain factors that voting of Ukrainians in Poland I think that it is very important that we have to how Ukrainians in Poland will participate in elections not at Poland but in Ukraine. It’s very important and also it is needed to consider that a big part of people who left from Ukraine. These are people who um maybe don’t have a Ukrainian position and it’s a big challenge for the country and you have to consider that as well. And to be honest, I will even think that I I would be a bit scared with the elections in Poland because there is impact and serious um impact of um Russia and also we can see all those provocations Russian provocation on the territory of Poland and unfortunately very often they are using Ukrainian citizens and that’s a very serious problem. uh that is also about this topic of elections and as for the things mentioned by Mr. most of I would say that we yeah we are we are discussing like the next two weeks will be very hard and not easy and it is very hard now to say what the result will be and again we can say that the main topic of the campaign it will not be about the Ukraine maybe just um got save us from the aggravation of war unfortunately we cannot also exclude include the strong impact. Well, I’m talking not just about the the operation that yesterday we’re talking about from Ukrainian sources, but also like Russian um unfortunately again the political ideas and political thoughts. There might be very dangerous destabilization of the Polish uh state remains. one of the possible options, not really strong ones, however that exists and we cannot um just omit that with our attention but we can just do everything um in order not to come to that and not to hope that we will not come to that scenario. Um I think that nobody would like to have that. Uh one more word it is very important for me that and this um Mr. Machak um who received 6,000 voices. I would say that it’s 6,000 voices. It’s too much. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a mistake or not. But I’m afraid the big part and a few thousand of people they made that consciously. They knew what they were doing and they were doing that with a pro-Russian position. And it’s danger because in uh 1944 they didn’t need a thousand of Polish uh citizens because um they just could manage Poland with few people. So it’s a big danger and part other voices like man or brown it’s a real threat and we have to think together because it’s a threat that it exists also for Ukraine. What do we do with people who are pro-Russian in our society? Thank you very much, Mrs. Lana. I would like to say that we have to draw some conclusions already from what is happening with the Polish uh society and the conclusions are that in Poland they have anti- Ukrainian position that is strengthening and their societies becomes more radical. Anti-mitism and xenophobia are becoming bigger than we thought. And this 21% from Manson and Brown these are the confirmation of that and this polarization of the society the two camps and um this civil platform of peace they didn’t didn’t disappear we will see who will win and um the debates are waiting I don’t know whether one or two tours of debates will be there and Mr. Carl Nodeski is saying that uh these debates have to be conducted not just by the state media but also oppositional media including republic and so we are waiting for the choice of polish people and we are making conclusions we are planning our strategy so yeah that’s how it is thank you thank you thank you we heard you about that and actually it’s not the task polish people at the task of Ukrainian structures to stand for the rights of Ukrainians abroad and if um there is such need then there should be state policy and we have the whole ministry created nowadays yeah of unity so hopefully the goals of the ministry will be [Music] aiming further to opening some election sites abroad yeah and they will work according to the concept Mister Johan. So you will summarize everything. Everything is very simple. We should have mutual vision brief as a shot because we are living in the conditions of war and it has to rely on our joint history and be aiming at the future. So the motive of our Polish Ukrainian relationship is for our and for your future. It’s simple and obvious. Thank you. Uh thank you very much very nice summary and I will just respond I will just add some optimism you know Mr. Papa, I am dreaming of for you to vote from Ukraine, from KU and Polish elections and for us to have elections as well. And for that we need to stop this war to have victory or to stop Russia and I am very happy that the topics that are dividing in these elections in Poland in my opinion, Mr. But you could see that from inside but in general what I’ve heard from all of that it was less than in some previous elections right like talking about some topics and it’s a good signal that this can be that can be like that well not to make too much politics I mean not to complicate the processes however this is complicated but as we can see it is possible and what disturbs me personally and that worries me a lot that is some virtual world in Europe and Poland as well that doesn’t see what all the intelligence services are speaking of attack of Russia in the nearest years and in spite of that the topic of defense of Poland and creation of proper conditions don’t repeat Ukraine Ukrainian mistakes. Don’t repeat Ukrainian mistakes. When people think of the best, they are trying to avoid the worst and this comes. So it’s not the topic of today’s discussion. However, we can feel yeah the same thing as we had and we face totally different realities where the we cannot even have the elections. These are the the new thing. You are totally correct because actually in Poland we have to understand that it might happen that first of all we are not electing the president but we are electing um the chief commander and chief of polish army in difficult circumstances. Unfortunately we are forgetting about that very often. Yeah, we in Ukraine Ukraine crisis media center we had thank you very much for the initiate if um we had very interesting thing the cycle is coming to an end as it was mentioned and maybe it just starts and we now the president elected during the war maybe the president during the war will impact the configuration of political landscape the First time since ‘ 90s. Seriously, choice of lens and yeah, the advocate of Ukraine who just did a lot. Maybe that is how that will happen. But the fact that the agenda in Poland of these elections is just duplicating. Well, not applicating but it’s repeating a lot of things that happen in Germany etc. So some general issues that disturb all of us and not many issues with the perspective we live with one day in Ukraine one day in Poland. So we want to unite our efforts you know Ukraine and Poland to look into the future and I will say even more in the future I personally think that other way than joined military defense and safety union of Ukraine, Poland and Great Britain nothing else. If you are talking about the threats in the future and believe me when all the politicians no matter who will be elected they just understand what they will face in their president term. So then what Mr. Magda said certain like Polish citizenship etc. it will go totally differently. So we don’t know what will happen but in any case Poland has shown democratic sustainable model and we’ll see what will happen in the second tour. We have these calls you know and you are talking about that more radical rights etc. But it’s not the unique moment for Poland. It’s a tendency for the whole Europe. And I believe and I always repeat that there are not many nations on European continent that can stand their ground. And I will say my opinion the army of a million well they only Ukraine and Poland can have such army. No one else in Europe nowadays like will not have a million of defense. And in Poland now I have some questions whether Poland can count on the fact that they have understanding of such possibilities. Very interesting discussion today. I am very very grateful and I think that you know of course and no one is pretending to get the documents like polish documents and you are saying he will let refuse but um the topic of Ukrainian polish relationship we would just support that in Ukraine crisis media center and colleagues who are doing that professionally and also in different centers and different institutions state and non-governmental I am just supporting ing that because it’s the country that is closest to us in terms of territory and we just have to watch the situation attentively because sometimes when we are addressing this during elections but we forget that building such partnership strategic partnership and by the way we have the defense agreement between our countries it requires thorough and sustainable work on state and further travels. You made your efforts today. Thank you very much, Mr. Anatoli. And uh now we have our local representative from Pav and Mlana. Uh she was um showing the problems to us. We’ve heard the problems as well. and I think has a broader agenda and I think that we will return to that topic again. Thank you very much for your patience for listening to everybody who is here in Ukraine crisis media center. I cannot just finalist I’m asking you if you have no issues no questions urgent okay if somebody has the question that we cannot leave without answering that you can ask it to the participants um but we have used all of our time thank you very much to all of you now we will discuss in between all of us this topic see you and I think that those who will watch that now just in Ukraine but also in Poland. They will be interested in this discussion. Thank you very much.