The first part of this article can be found here..
On November 19, 2021, Prime Minister Morawiecki met with the US National Intelligence Director, Ms. Avril Haines. The meeting was also attended by the heads of the Ministry of Interior and Administration, the Ministry of National Defense and the presidential BBN (National Security Bureau). The visit had not been previously announced and took place as part of urgent allied consultations on the situation on NATO's eastern flank.
According to the American press, the purpose of the visit was to warn the Polish government against the expected Russian aggression against Ukraine, which also includes the conflict on the Polish-Belarusian border. As The New York Times wrote, "we have a short window of time to consolidate alliances and stop Russia or prepare for what Putin will do." This is what Polish politicians were supposed to hear.
The meeting must have made a great impression on Polish politicians, as Prime Minister Morawiecki went to the Baltic States within a few days, visiting all three capitals on one day. Then he was at a meeting of the V4 group, where he also met with the Prime Minister of Croatia. He then spoke in Paris with President Emmanuel Macron, and the next day went to Berlin to meet Chancellor Merkel and her successor Olaf Scholz, before flying to London to Prime Minister Boris Johnson a few hours later.
On the same day, President Andrzej Duda visited NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels, and then held an hour-long telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak met in Bucharest with the ministers of eight other Central and Eastern European countries (the so-called Bucharest Nine). Within a week, Polish politicians of the highest rank held as many diplomatic meetings as Polish diplomacy would normally require many months. Will Putin attack?
Ukraine's head of intelligence, Kyryło Budanov, claims that Kiev expects a possible confrontation with regular units of the Russian army at the end of January 2022. The Russians are planning to launch an offensive by land, sea and air, which would result in the Kremlin gaining a land connection between Donbass and Crimea. In the further plans of this offensive, a landing in Odessa may also be launched. Then the Russians could take control of the entire south of Ukraine, all the way to their occupied Transnistria.
The Ministry of Defense of Belarus said that in the event of an armed conflict with Ukraine, Belarus would not be passive and would side with Moscow.
Ukrainian intelligence informs about a possible coup attempt in Ukraine, which could take place in December with the participation of the Russians, stated President Volodymyr Zelensky.
So with the change of government in Germany and the upcoming elections in France, our Western allies are on the defensive. In the US, support for Biden is collapsing as Republicans are gearing up to regain power and blocking nominations for hundreds of key positions in the US administration. Thanks to rising oil and gas prices, Russia has the means to finance its military operations. The West is weak at the moment, which wants to take advantage of the "Russian chess player", which has long disrupted and led to the erosion of both NATO and the European Union.
What is puzzling, however, is the sudden turn of the Biden administration, turning to Poles about building a quick coalition. Bravo Prime Minister Morawiecki.
This article was originally published in «Tygodnik Solidarność» («Solidarity Weekly»).
The first part of this article can be found here..
Translated from Polish by Andrew Woźniewicz.