DISINFO: Poland has a legal right to introduce troops to Western Ukraine
SUMMARY
The only legal ally of Ukraine is Poland because it signed relevant agreements with Kyiv. The rest of the Western countries do not have any obligations towards Ukraine. Formally, Poland should introduce troops to Western Ukraine as it has a right to provide security in these territories by all means. Poland is also supposed to engage in military actions [against Russia], but this issue is not clearly defined in the agreement.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative challenging Ukraine’s statehood and presenting Poland as a state with imperial ambitions. Apart from smearing Poland, the aim is also to deflect attention away from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
There are no agreements between Poland and Ukraine giving the former the right to introduce its troops on the Ukrainian territory.
This disinformation message has adopted several different and sometimes contradictory forms, including allegations that Poland either wants to create a puppet proxy-state in Western Ukraine or annex these territories or that it is President Zelenskyy who wants to cede this land due to his “Polish origins”.
Poland adheres to international law regarding state borders, fully supports the independence and territorial integrity of neighbouring countries, and it rejects any “imperial” ambitions towards other countries. Poland, as well as the EU and the US, respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. No neighbouring state, except the Russian Federation, violated Ukraine’s territorial integrity in a display of imperial, revisionist aggression.
Read more about the Eastern policy of Poland here.
See our in-depth debunk of the claims of Polish historical revisionism.
See earlier disinformation cases alleging that Poland thinks that Western Ukraine, Western Belarus and South-Western Lithuania belongs to it, that Poland wants to dismember Ukraine and re-establish a Polish empire, that Ukraine is a Western colony belonging to Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Russia, that Poland will try to gain full military control in Ukrainian territories under the guise of protecting the Polish population from Russia or that Poland plans to establish control over its historical lands in Ukraine.