For Poland and NATO, the only risk bigger than that of Russian retaliation is the risk of Western inaction
POLAND HAS long warned its Western partners about the risk of Russian aggression in Ukraine, and indeed beyond, and the need to anchor its neighbour in NATO and the EU. Today, as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the country is on the frontline of a potentially explosive conflict. The role it seems to play is as important as it is dangerous.
Sergey, a welder, and his friend Vitaly, a truck driver, for instance, drove from Wroclaw, a city in western Poland. Vladimir , came by train from Amsterdam, where he worked in the shipyards. Aleksandr, a metalworker, took a bus from Estonia, along with dozens of others. Now the men, all of them Ukrainians who have been working abroad, are on the Polish border with Ukraine, heading back home to fight. “Our people are waiting,” says Aleksandr, queuing at passport control.
The country’s location, infrastructure, and demography make it the West’s most important gateway to Ukraine. Poland shares a 530km border with Ukraine, punctuated by over a dozen crossings. The airport in Rzeszow, about an hour’s drive from the border, is the closest big airport to Ukraine on NATO territory. Flight radar data already show an uptick in military aircraft, presumably involved in weapons deliveries, flying in and out of Rzeszow since the start of the war.