On Monday, the president’s closest political aide, Minister Marcin Mastalerek, decided to raise the issue once again. When asked for a comment on the president’s words on Radio Zet, he said that it was not Andrzej Duda, but Donald Tusk, who should be ashamed and apologize for his “reset with Russia” policy.
How to defend the indefensible
The president’s statement was extremely ill-considered and hardly defensible. The president made an insinuation against the head of the government of the country in which he is the highest official, suggesting that the prime minister and the services subordinate to him act in the interests of Russia. That was the sum total of Duda’s words, which made the most serious accusations not only against Tusk, but against all the institutions that allowed Rubcow to examine his files, including the prosecutor’s office and the services that had previously led to Rubcow’s arrest as a spy.
The President makes similar accusations without any shred of evidence, without any attempt to determine in advance – which could have been done through appropriate confidential channels – whether Rubtsov actually gained access to any information to which he should not have had access from the point of view of the investigation and the security interests of Poland. Especially considering that as a result of the prisoner exchange he returned to Russia, where local services will certainly spend hours analysing everything that the spy operating in our country has to say about his experiences with Polish counterintelligence. The Prosecutor’s Office denies that Rubtsov gained access to sensitive information – for example, allowing the identification of agents investigating Russian agents in Poland – and assures that everything was done in accordance with the law and procedures.
Such insinuations would be reprehensible even from an opposition MP desperately trying to attract the attention of the media and voters, but in the case of the president, they are completely unacceptable. After all, we expect the president to have some basic responsibility for the state, especially for its security. And insinuating treason against the head of government from the highest office certainly does not make Poland a safer country.
It is clear that Mastalerek has no good arguments to defend his boss’s words. Using a method that PiS has repeatedly tormented us with in recent years, the presidential minister is trying to turn the tables, throw the ball to the other side and organize the media situation in such a way that the prime minister and his political camp have to explain their alleged pro-Russian stance, and not the president for his compromising statement.
Mastelerek himself makes unfounded insinuations, suggesting that there was something ominously suspicious about the 2012 agreement with the Russian services and the reset policy with Russia, or at least pointing to Tusk’s murky and obscure connections with Moscow. Meanwhile, the reset policy, under the influence of the Obama administration, was implemented by the entire West and, given our relations with Washington, would have been implemented to some extent by any Polish government of the time. The agreement with the FSB concerned mainly cooperation in Afghanistan, as Gazeta Wyborcza calculated. By 2013, the FSB had signed 201 such agreements with many different countries, and this was nothing unusual at that time.
Even if we admit that the policy of the West, including the Tusk government, towards Russia at the turn of the first and second decades of the 21st century was wrong – and indeed the West showed great naivety towards the Putin regime at that time – it is completely unjustified to suggest today that it was a “betrayal”. Using it to hit political opponents like a flail spoils the debate on Polish foreign and security policy, reducing it to a mud fight.
Foreign services do not need to discuss us with these politicians
It also cannot be ruled out that the attacks by Andrzej Duda and his “vice president” on Prime Minister Tusk are part of some new political plan by the Presidential Palace, a new game with the government.
If there is a plan behind them, even without knowing its details, we can say that it is probably even more reckless than the president’s words on Thursday. Firstly, because when fighting with Tusk, President Duda has lost every time so far and he really should draw conclusions from this.
Secondly, and more importantly, even if the Presidential Palace managed to gain something in this way, the Polish state would lose from this kind of political game. It is impossible to take seriously a country whose president – regardless of whether he is guided by personal reluctance, resentment or political strategy – makes similar insinuations against the head of government.
As all experts with some knowledge of the matter state, the main goal of Russian services in the “collective West” – which fortunately now includes Poland – is to fuel internal conflicts and divisions, intensify disputes, generate disinformation chaos and a general climate of distrust, especially towards the state, its ruling institutions, the political class and the entire democratic system.
Listening to what President Duda and Minister Mastalerek say, a popular satirical cartoon on the Internet comes to mind, presenting alternatives for the course of the Battle of Grunwald. Polish troops are fighting fiercely against each other, a group of Teutonic Knights approaches the battle, and one of them, trying to understand what is really happening, says to his colleagues after the sword: “I think they started without us.”
With politicians like Duda and Mastalerek, we do not need foreign services to spread confusion and disinformation, to divide us and undermine trust in institutions – we ourselves do it effectively. By entering into similar conflicts with the government, Duda and Mastalerek cross not only the line of ridicule, but also the line that a politician in this position, who demonstrates primary responsibility for the state, should never cross.
