Polish Response to the Russian Holiday

Poland's incumbent president Alexander Kvasnevski said in an interview to Lithuanian Radio that his country was not seeking conflicts with Russia. Having said that, the Polish leader immediately urged Lithuania and other countries of the European Union to work out a single policy line towards Moscow. "We shall not have Russia dividing its partners into privileged ones and others who can be pushed aside", threatened A. Kvasnevski.

Such a bitter reaction on the part of Polish authorities was caused not only by the new Russian holiday based on the expulsion of Polish invaders from Russia in the seventeenth century. The bilateral relations had gotten worse after Russia and Germany had decided to build a gas pipe line on the bottom of the Baltic sea bypassing Poland and the Baltic states. According to BBC analysts, the pipeline would permit Russia "to leave Poland without oil and gas for political reasons".

Lekh Kachinski, who is going to replace A. Kvasnevski as Polish president, is already threatening Moscow with a tough policy line. The president-elect has promised not to go to Moscow before Vladimir Putin comes to Warsaw. "For us, it is symbolic from the viewpoint of formulating the objectives of Russian policy that its national holiday has been set for the day the Poles were driven out of Moscow", noted L. Kachinski.