What I wonder about the incident in the Canadian Parliament is not that the the veteran of the Waffen SS Galicia Division was honored with a standing ovation. As negligent as the staff work was that extended the invitation, mistakes happen and the Speaker of the Canadian Parliament has expressed contrition and resigned.
The correct question is whether Zelensky knew in advance that a member of this vile division would be honored. While no one could reasonably expect Trudeau to be aware of the brutality of the unit in which the Ukrainian-Canadian served, shouldn’t Zelensky have been aware that his unit murdered Jews and Poles?
If he was aware of it shouldn’t he have said something in advance before the standing ovation? Zelensky was photographed applauding vigorously along with the rest of the MPs.
This incident is not just causing problems for the Canadians, the Poles are incensed. Zelensky has done a terrible job keeping Poland on his side. Poland warmly welcomed somewhere between 1-2 million Ukrainians at great financial cost. Poland has been remarkably generous providing arms to Ukraine and much of the weaponry provided to Ukraine transits through Poland.
When Poland made clear that it would not permit Ukraine to dump its grain in Poland thus impoverishing Polish farmers (in election season no less) Zelensky’s response was undiplomatic at best and remarkably arrogant at worst. Poland is now infuriated with Ukraine and despite Poland’s self interest in opposing Russia, it is unlikely that Polish-Ukrainian relations will recover any time soon. The picture of Zelensky applauding a man who served in a unit that murdered so many Poles certainly won’t help.
There is another angle to this situation that has nothing to do with Ukraine. During the COVID lockdowns, there was a huge demonstration of Canadian truckers in Ottawa and in Western Canada who opposed the lockdowns. Trudeau had the temerity to accuse these peaceful demonstrators of behaving like and associating with Nazis. In light of this, it is hardly surprising that many Canadians find the image of Trudeau vigorously applauding an actual Nazi sympathizer to be, at the least, ironic.
It is interesting that as Polish-Ukrainian relations have deteriorated French-Ukrainian relations have dramatically improved. Is this a case of Zelensky choosing Macron over Poland?
I doubt it. I'm not sure Polish-Ukrainian relations have deteriorated, either. From what I can tell, there was an unfortunate exchange of words, but I don't think relations have significantly deteriorated.
Poland has said it will no longer transfer arms to Ukraine. Maybe it’s just words, but if Poland follows through on the threat it sounds consequential. See,
In diplomatic-speak, the words of the Polish Prime Minister are pretty harsh. He said,
“I want to tell President Zelensky never to insult Poles again, as he did recently during his speech at the UN...
The Polish people will never allow this to happen, and defending the good name of Poland is not only my duty and honor, but also the most important task of the Polish government.”
To be fair to Zelensky and his Government, they’re under tremendous pressure and as a result it’s easy to be careless with their words. Still, this is not the first time Zelensky has been accused of arrogance towards his allies.
Poland has been more generous to Ukraine and Ukrainians than any Government in the world with the exception of the United States. Antagonizing Poland is an enormous unforced error by Zelensky.
Yeah, but what I've seen since then is Polish officials trying to downplay that as populist electioneering and saying that the threat not to transfer arms was a "mistranslation." So I don't know what's going on.
Sep 28, 2023·edited Sep 28, 2023Liked by Claire Berlinski
Except that Macron and the Polish govt don't like each other so if you wanted to get increased support from Macron one way to curry favor with him is to insult Poland(I do want to emphasize the Polish opposition is far closer to Macron than the current govt).
BTW, a Politico article just came out this morning in which several Polish politicians endorsed Trump over Biden although the same people quoted also didn't think Trump was serious about stopping support for Ukraine.
Interesting. Kind of a weird mistake in that article: "The former president has been impeached twice and faces several criminal indictments, including one for denying the results of the 2020 election?" He doesn't face indictment for that. I wonder who edited that article?
Insulting Poland in order to curry favor with Macron would be a silly strategy. Poland shares a border with Ukraine; France doesn’t. Poland is providing refuge to more than 1 million Ukrainians; France isn’t.
It may be accurate, but I'm going *insane* because for some reason, when I published it, a whole bunch of random paragraph returns entered the text, and nothing I do gets rid of them. I've tried copying the document into Word and stripping it of all formatting. I've tried retyping over the places where they've showed up. I have no idea how they got there, no idea how to get rid of them, and it hurts my editor's heart so badly I can hardly stand it.
I’m looking forward to reading the book.
What I wonder about the incident in the Canadian Parliament is not that the the veteran of the Waffen SS Galicia Division was honored with a standing ovation. As negligent as the staff work was that extended the invitation, mistakes happen and the Speaker of the Canadian Parliament has expressed contrition and resigned.
The correct question is whether Zelensky knew in advance that a member of this vile division would be honored. While no one could reasonably expect Trudeau to be aware of the brutality of the unit in which the Ukrainian-Canadian served, shouldn’t Zelensky have been aware that his unit murdered Jews and Poles?
If he was aware of it shouldn’t he have said something in advance before the standing ovation? Zelensky was photographed applauding vigorously along with the rest of the MPs.
This incident is not just causing problems for the Canadians, the Poles are incensed. Zelensky has done a terrible job keeping Poland on his side. Poland warmly welcomed somewhere between 1-2 million Ukrainians at great financial cost. Poland has been remarkably generous providing arms to Ukraine and much of the weaponry provided to Ukraine transits through Poland.
When Poland made clear that it would not permit Ukraine to dump its grain in Poland thus impoverishing Polish farmers (in election season no less) Zelensky’s response was undiplomatic at best and remarkably arrogant at worst. Poland is now infuriated with Ukraine and despite Poland’s self interest in opposing Russia, it is unlikely that Polish-Ukrainian relations will recover any time soon. The picture of Zelensky applauding a man who served in a unit that murdered so many Poles certainly won’t help.
There is another angle to this situation that has nothing to do with Ukraine. During the COVID lockdowns, there was a huge demonstration of Canadian truckers in Ottawa and in Western Canada who opposed the lockdowns. Trudeau had the temerity to accuse these peaceful demonstrators of behaving like and associating with Nazis. In light of this, it is hardly surprising that many Canadians find the image of Trudeau vigorously applauding an actual Nazi sympathizer to be, at the least, ironic.
I don't know whether Zelensky knew in advance. If you see any reporting that indicates that he did or didn't, let me know, because I'm also curious.
It is interesting that as Polish-Ukrainian relations have deteriorated French-Ukrainian relations have dramatically improved. Is this a case of Zelensky choosing Macron over Poland?
I doubt it. I'm not sure Polish-Ukrainian relations have deteriorated, either. From what I can tell, there was an unfortunate exchange of words, but I don't think relations have significantly deteriorated.
Poland has said it will no longer transfer arms to Ukraine. Maybe it’s just words, but if Poland follows through on the threat it sounds consequential. See,
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/poland-to-end-arms-support-for-ukraine-as-trade-dispute-escalates#:~:text=Prime%20Minister%20Mateusz%20Morawiecki%20said,Russian%20aggression%20in%20the%20region.
In diplomatic-speak, the words of the Polish Prime Minister are pretty harsh. He said,
“I want to tell President Zelensky never to insult Poles again, as he did recently during his speech at the UN...
The Polish people will never allow this to happen, and defending the good name of Poland is not only my duty and honor, but also the most important task of the Polish government.”
To be fair to Zelensky and his Government, they’re under tremendous pressure and as a result it’s easy to be careless with their words. Still, this is not the first time Zelensky has been accused of arrogance towards his allies.
Poland has been more generous to Ukraine and Ukrainians than any Government in the world with the exception of the United States. Antagonizing Poland is an enormous unforced error by Zelensky.
Yeah, but what I've seen since then is Polish officials trying to downplay that as populist electioneering and saying that the threat not to transfer arms was a "mistranslation." So I don't know what's going on.
Except that Macron and the Polish govt don't like each other so if you wanted to get increased support from Macron one way to curry favor with him is to insult Poland(I do want to emphasize the Polish opposition is far closer to Macron than the current govt).
BTW, a Politico article just came out this morning in which several Polish politicians endorsed Trump over Biden although the same people quoted also didn't think Trump was serious about stopping support for Ukraine.
https://www.politico.eu/article/can-europe-survive-trump-ii/
Which makes me wonder do people in governing circles in Warsaw actually think Macron is their biggest opponent not Putin or Trump?
Interesting. Kind of a weird mistake in that article: "The former president has been impeached twice and faces several criminal indictments, including one for denying the results of the 2020 election?" He doesn't face indictment for that. I wonder who edited that article?
Tim, thanks for the link; it was informative.
Insulting Poland in order to curry favor with Macron would be a silly strategy. Poland shares a border with Ukraine; France doesn’t. Poland is providing refuge to more than 1 million Ukrainians; France isn’t.
Excellent transcript. Caught almost everything correctly.
It may be accurate, but I'm going *insane* because for some reason, when I published it, a whole bunch of random paragraph returns entered the text, and nothing I do gets rid of them. I've tried copying the document into Word and stripping it of all formatting. I've tried retyping over the places where they've showed up. I have no idea how they got there, no idea how to get rid of them, and it hurts my editor's heart so badly I can hardly stand it.