Польська воєнна дипломатія щодо України у 2022-2024 рр.: поміж центризмом та периферійністю напряму

The article is devoted to a comprehensive study of the approaches, principles, and measures of the political and military leadership of the Republic of Poland in the field of military diplomacy, the importance of which increased in 2022-2024, when the Russian Federation carried out a large-scale invasion of Ukraine, which changed the hybrid war into a modern total war. The research methodology is based on objectivity and historicism, within which the principles of generalization, analysis and synthesis, statistical method, as well as retrospective and systemic approaches were applied. The article for the first time comprehensively reflects the main practical approaches and decisions of Polish political, diplomatic, and military leaders against the background of geopolitical, geo-economic, and socio-cultural processes in Eastern Europe at the present stage. It has been established that Polish military diplomacy since 1999 has been moving in the wake of NATO’s political doctrines, and the directions of joining the North Atlantic Alliance declared by the Ukrainian leadership after 2005 have only strengthened Poland’s desire to advocate for Ukrainian interests in this process. The main vector of Polish military diplomacy after February 2022 was to ensure the stability of the Russian-Ukrainian front. The means to achieve this goal were a broad Polish diplomatic campaign to convince key allies of the stability of the Ukrainian state, army, and society, as well as of emergency supplies of the most necessary military weapons for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Having understood the Russian threat the Polish political leadership chose the path of resistance in the diplomatic, military, and economic spheres. The diplomacy of official Warsaw operated within the framework of Polish strategic interests, the intentions of leading NATO countries, and Ukrainian national interests. The coincidence of the national interests of Poland and Ukraine prompted them to make long-term concessions in the economic and military-strategic sphere. Poland’s military-technical assistance was timely and significant since it was ahead of the active steps of the Western allies. In exchange for the Soviet-style military equipment transferred to Ukraine, the Polish authorities received financial compensation and the opportunity to purchase the latest Western systems. It has been determined that as a result of the influence of the so-called axis of fear, represented by Washington and Berlin, which is based on an unnatural reaction to the Russian information attack on the use of nuclear weapons and refusal to openly confront the axis of evil (Russia, North Korea, Iran and its proxy, China), Polish politicians are gradually avoiding placing the Ukrainian case in the center of security structures, leaning towards classifying it as peripheral. This change in the approaches of the Polish leadership is caused by the demands of the allies, who fear the transformation of the Russo-Ukrainian War war from a local one to a regional one.