Polish Dissident Anti-War Voices on the Rise
Sunday July 3, 2022
There is no doubt that Poland is and has been the leading voice in NATO and in the European Union advocating for a more aggressive approach to Russia in the context of the war in Ukraine. Apart from the daily reproaches of the Polish government and president against Moscow and in its perversely subservient line of support for Kiev, two recent developments are a clear testimony that Warsaw’s Eastern policy is becoming more and more of an aberration.
On May 9th, the ambassador of the Russian Federation in Poland, Sergey Andreev, was doused with red paint while on a visit to a Soviet war cemetery in Warsaw by Ukrainian activists. Iryna Zemlana, who was personally responsible for the attack, was not apprehended by the police, and what is more, was able to escape Warsaw.
This egregious act, which should have been prosecuted, was even mildly praised by the Polish Minister of the Interior, Mariusz Kamiński, on Twitter. Worth mentioning here is that active assault or insult of a representative of a foreign state is regulated in Article 136 of the Polish Criminal Code. This provision states in the first paragraph that “whoever, on the territory of the Republic of Poland, commits an active assault on a head of a foreign state or an accredited head of diplomatic representation of such a state or a person enjoying similar protection under laws, agreements or generally recognized international customs, shall be subject to the penalty of deprivation of liberty for a term of between 3 months and 5 years.”
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