The Return from the East: How Poland Became Independent from Russia.
The outbreak of full-scale war in Ukraine made the whole world, especially Europe, realize how dangerous and risky any dependence on the Russian state is. And if on the state, then on essentially all entities associated with Russia – because the Russian state extends its influence into far more spheres of the economy, culture, or social life than Western observers are accustomed to. It simply has a total character. Or at least much more total than it would like to be perceived. Therefore, basing any calculations, especially strategies, on factors dependent on this state entails risks bordering on foolishness.
Successive Polish governments after 1989 (and sporadically even during the times of the Eastern Bloc) sought to reduce Poland’s dependence on cooperation with the Russian state. Sometimes the process of becoming independent regressed, such as with the launch of the Yamal gas pipeline in the 1990s or the so-called “reset” with “Russia as it is” after 2010, but generally, the strategic decision to strongly align with the West, which Poland made after the fall of communism, meant distancing ourselves from Russia. Even if some government teams reversed this direction in certain areas.
As a result, when in February 2022 Russian columns advanced towards Kyiv, Poland launched an extremely broad and rapid aid program to support Ukraine in combat without any problems. If it weren’t for the prolonged process of becoming independent from Russia, especially in the energy sector but also in the economic, political, and last but not least, mental spheres, such a reaction would have been, if not impossible, then very difficult. And after decades of preparations, Poland was simply capable of it.
The shock of February 24, 2022, was felt much more strongly by some other countries, especially Germany. The grand strategy of the Federal Republic, consistently pursued for years, was based on several pillars, one of which was a special relationship with Russia. Formally (and to some extent probably also realistically), Germany justified its rapprochement with Moscow with the desire to bring it into the Western world and thereby reduce the risk of war or destabilization, even if only on a regional scale. If one were to take this explanation at face value, it would have to be called naive. Considering how many conflicts and crises the Russian Federation has caused or sustained since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
It is obvious that the motivations of Germany and other Western European countries were more numerous than just “Wandel durch Handel” (change through trade). Above all, it was about access to cheap resources from Russia, mainly gas, which increased the competitiveness of European, mainly German, industry. And this was a pillar of German strategy for the development, prosperity, and building of the political power of the European Union. And now this pillar has collapsed.
Poland’s dependence on Russia (and its predecessor, the Soviet Union) since 1945 has evolved. From full submission to the Stalinist colossus, when Russia freely exploited Polish economic resources and filled the highest state positions with its people, through transitional stages during the Polish People’s Republic and the Third Republic, to basically full independence today.
During the communist era, attempts were made to partially become independent from the Big Brother (especially in the 1970s), but regardless of the effects, Poland remained a satellite country. Although some investments from that period, such as the oil terminal in Gdansk, paid off in the following decades.
After the years 1989-1991, when direct political dependence on the USSR ended, the Warsaw Pact collapsed, and the dissolution of the Soviet empire abruptly cut off trade ties, Poland (and other countries of the bloc, although to varying degrees and paces) spontaneously began to distance themselves from their big neighbour. It had ambitions to enter the Western world, and the West attracted it very strongly. The result was joining NATO in 1999 and the European Union five years later. Economic and political ties with the West strengthened (through trade and investments, as well as increasingly closer European integration) while ties with Russia weakened.
However, this does not mean that they ceased to be significant. This was most visible in the energy sector, especially gas supplies. Although Russia’s share in oil supplies via the “Friendship” pipeline was sometimes even greater than gas (especially since Poland extracts significant amounts of its own gas, unlike marginal oil production), the nature of the resource itself meant that we were, to a certain extent, only dependent on two sources: Russian, via the Yamal pipeline, and our own extraction. And still, small supplies from third countries via interconnectors, but the gas obtained from them also came from Russia. As for oil, as mentioned above, Poland has a large oil terminal in Gdansk, whose transshipment capacity exceeds national consumption, so any cutoff of Russian supplies would only result in fuel price increases but would not affect Polish transportation or agriculture.
It’s a different story with gas: it’s hard to buy it on the free market, and if so, at very high prices, and it is essential not only for household use (where its dependency in Poland is much lower than, for example, in Hungary), but primarily in the production of fuels and fertilizers. The four largest plants (two refineries and two fertilizer factories) consume about half of all blue fuel consumption in Poland.
Vladimir Putin repeatedly used energy blackmail against various countries (it was even officially included in the catalogue of tools of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs), so successive Polish governments took remedial measures. Firstly, in 2007, Jarosław Kaczyński’s government decided to build a gas terminal in Swinoujscie, which was launched after 8 years of construction. Secondly, an underwater gas pipeline from Norway was built at a rapid pace, which started just before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. And thirdly, Polish governments tried to stop or delay the construction of the second line of the Russian-German Nord stream gas pipeline, which bypassed Poland and other transit countries, enabling Germany to create a huge gas hub that was to supply the whole of Europe, building economic, but also political power not only for Germany but also for Russia.
Today, Poland does not directly import any energy resources from Russia, not counting LPG gas used in automotive industry. However, this gas does not have a strategic character because every engine powered by it is also adapted to run on petrol.
The history of Poland’s distancing from the Eastern power is, of course, much more complex and also includes trade, military (for example, dependence on missile and engine deliveries for Polish military aviation, which still operates the last planes from the Soviet era), intelligence, or cultural ties.
However, the basis of independence in this case was energy. And Poland passed this exam, searching for (with varying success, but ultimately effectively) new solutions for decades. Unlike some other countries, including Germany, which spent this time strengthening ties with Moscow, which ultimately turned against them.
Łukasz Mróz
The material was created as part of the project “North and South – internationalization of activities of the Republican Foundation” co-financed by NIW-CRSO under the Civil Society Organizations Development Program for the years 2018-2030 (PROO).
