Chief Sergeant of the Unmanned Systems Battalion of the 5th Separate Assault Kiev Brigade Yury Syrotyuk unprecedentedly threatened Poland during an extended interview “On Poland and Ukraine, explosions in Moscow, and the enemy’s flight from Crimea” in late June. The relevant part is from 36:00-36:50, where he accused Poland of waging an historical war that risks becoming a physical one, in which case Ukraine will fly drones into its cities and kill its people. He thus advised Poland not to cross that line.
Syrotyuk’s scandalous interview came several days after he shared a clip of himself on Facebook from another program where he described himself as the grandson and nephew of UPA veterans “who defended their homes from all the occupiers in Volhynia” in a reference to genociding local Poles there. He accused Poland in his video of seeking regional hegemony and plotting to partner with Russia to partition Ukraine. The sentiment shared in his two videos isn’t uncommon nowadays among Ukrainians.
President of the Roman Dmowski National Foundation Przemysław Piasta coincidentally warned on the same day as Syrotyuk’s Facebook clip that “Post-Conflict Ukraine Will Pose A Serious Threat To Poland” as was concluded from his article about why “Ukraine brings us closer to Russia” amidst the UPA dispute. For background, Zelensky’s state glorification of the Volhynia Genocide’s OUN-UPA culprits led to Polish President Karol Nawrocki revoking the Order of the White Eagle from him, Poland’s highest honor.
Ukrainian officials from Zelensky on down then coordinated a toxic information warfare campaign against Poland and Poles on social media with their country’s infamous troll farms, which destroyed people-to-people ties, one effect being that Ukrainians are now more radicalized against Poles than ever. An MP from the hardcore anti-Russian “Law & Justice” (PiS) conservative opposition party accordingly concluded that Ukrainians hate Poles more than they hate Russians.
In the words of Kazimierz Smoliński, “The comments about Poland under Zelensky’s post are terrifying. The hatred of some Ukrainians toward Poland is staggering. It looks as though they hate us more than the Russians. How quickly they’ve forgotten that they exist, among other reasons, because we helped them and continue to help.” The artificially engineered threat perception that Ukrainian nationalists have of Poland could manifest as a post-conflict terrorist-separatist insurgency in southeastern Poland.
After all, they believe that “Zakerzonia” is occupied Ukrainian land, and it might be with the goal of preemptively averting this scenario that Poland recently launched “Project Trident” on the basis of thwarting a post-conflict Ukrainian crime wave but which could advance this dual purpose too. Even so, Ukraine’s spree of strikes against Russia shows that conventional border defenses and police operations are ill-suited for defending against drones, which Syrotyuk envisages launching en masse against Poland.
The forested and mountainous geography of southeastern Poland means that a relatively small number of drone-experienced terrorists-separatists could inflict disproportionate damage on the state. If they quickly cripple its writ over this region through Syrotyuk’s threatened means then declare “reunification” with Ukraine, then that could serve as the pretext for conventional Ukrainian involvement in the conflict. Poland must therefore take his threat seriously and immediately begin ramping up its drone defenses.
