BRUSSELS — Russian President Vladimir Putin has made little secret of his plan to keep up the pressure on Ukraine until Western resolve breaks. More than 500 days into his war of aggression, he now has reason to believe things are working out the way he hoped, even if events are not playing out how he might have imagined.
Governments in Poland, Estonia, Slovakia and others in Central and Eastern Europe have been among Kyiv’s staunchest allies since the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Beyond sending weapons and welcoming millions of Ukrainian refugees, they have been Ukraine’s loudest advocates in the West, pushing for a tough line against Moscow in the face of reluctance from countries like France and Germany.
But as the leaders of some of these ride-or-die allies face reelection battles or other domestic challenges, and governments get nervous about the impact of Ukraine one day joining the European Union, that support is starting to waver.
The most striking example is Poland, whose Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced on Wednesday that he would stop delivering new weapons to Ukraine. The statement marked a stunning escalation in a dispute between Kyiv and its closest EU neighbor over grain shipments Warsaw claims are undercutting production from Polish farmers ahead of a parliamentary election on October 15.
“Ukraine realizes that in the last months, they’re not bordering Poland, they’re bordering Polish elections,” said Ivan Krastev, chair of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, Bulgaria. So for now, “the votes of a hundred thousand Polish farmers are more important for the government than what is going to be the cost for Ukraine. And we’re going to see this happening in many places,” he added.
Morawiecki is facing a tough challenge from Donald Tusk, a former prime minister who has also served as president of the European Council. As part of his electoral strategy, the prime minister is courting supporters of the far-right Confederation Party, which opposes aid for Ukraine.
“We are no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine, because we are now arming Poland with more modern weapons,” Morawiecki said in an appearance on Polish television channel Polsat.
While it’s tempting to write off the tensions as electoral fireworks, there are reasons to believe they could persist beyond the campaign. As a Western diplomat who asked not to be named pointed out, the grain dispute between Warsaw and Kyiv reveals deeper misgivings about Ukraine joining the EU. “For 18 months, Poland has badgered any member state that would utter the slightest hesitation towards Ukraine,” the diplomat said. “Now they’re showing their true colors.”
The problem for Kyiv is that it’s not just Poland where support seems to be slipping. Since the start of the war, the Baltic states have led the pro-Ukraine charge in Brussels and Washington, perhaps nobody as loudly or effectively as Estonia’s liberal prime minister, Kaja Kallas.
As the daughter of a former prime minister and European commissioner, Kallas was widely seen as the emblem of a newly emboldened Eastern Europe that would ride the Ukraine crisis to positions of greater power in Brussels. But Kallas’ credibility took a hit over a scandal involving her husband, who was revealed to own a stake in a company that kept doing business in Russia after the February 2022 invasion, even as his wife was advocating for ending all trade with Moscow.
Asked about Kallas’ troubles, Estonia’s Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said that no amount of political upheaval would change the country’s course: “We constantly have elections, and we constantly have domestic issues, but it doesn’t change our policy,” Tsahkna said. “One thing Estonia has had in all these 32 years is the same continuous foreign policy.”
That said, Kallas has been a lot less vocal since the scandal broke in late August, depriving Kyiv of one of its strongest advocates in Western capitals.
Poland’s PM Mateusz Morawiecki announced on Wednesday that he would stop delivering new weapons to Ukraine | Omar Marques/Getty Images
Then there’s Slovakia. The Central European country has been among Europe’s biggest backers of Ukraine, but elections on September 30 could turn it into a skeptic overnight.
“If you have a society where only 40 percent support arms delivery to Ukraine and your government offers support almost at the level of the Baltics, that creates a backlash,” said Milan Nič, a fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations.
Robert Fico, the country’s populist former prime minister, is campaigning on a pro-Russian, anti-American platform that opposes sanctions against Russian individuals and further arms deliveries to Kyiv. He’s on course to win the election, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls.
A victory for Fico would give Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — one of Kyiv’s biggest European skeptics — an ally on the EU stage. If his party gets enough support to be part of the government, Fico told the Associated Press earlier this month, “we won’t send any arms or ammunition to Ukraine anymore.”
To be sure, Ukraine still has plenty of strong backers in Europe. Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Sweden, Finland and others remain strongly committed, and French President Emmanuel Macron has recently swung strongly behind Kyiv. Some analysts also downplay the importance of Poland and Slovakia’s role at the moment, pointing out that there aren’t many weapons left to deliver in the countries’ armories.
Kyiv, for now, seems relaxed. Speaking at a press conference after an event in Brussels last Friday, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration Olha Stefanishyna downplayed the static between Kyiv and some of its erstwhile friends: “We have a strong commitment and a political confirmation that none of the political processes will affect the ongoing support,” she said.
It’s hard to imagine, however, that somewhere Putin isn’t rubbing his hands, and watching.
WARSAW — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tried to rebuild bridges with Poland late on Saturday, seeking to take the sting out of a political dispute with Warsaw by giving awards to two Polish humanitarian volunteers on his way back from a trip to the U.S. and Canada.
Although Poland was a die-hard ally of Ukraine in the early days of the Russian invasion, the conservative, nationalist government of the Law and Justice (PiS) party has taken an unexpectedly hard line against its war-torn neighbor in the past days, largely for reasons related to the impending election on October 15.
In order to protect Polish farmers — crucial to the ruling party’s electoral prospects next month — Warsaw has blocked agricultural imports from Ukraine, in a protectionist move that Kyiv says is illegal and has referred to the World Trade Organization. Amid this dispute over food products, Warsaw made the shock announcement it would no longer send arms to Ukrainian forces fighting the Russians.
Over recent days, Zelenskyy has been keen to avoid venturing into Polish electoral politics, but has instead tried to play up the importance of direct relations between ordinary Poles and Ukrainians. In that vein, Marcin Przydacz, head of the office of international policy at the presidency, told the Onet news platform that Zelenskyy had simply visited Poland in transit on his way home to Kyiv and had not met politicians.
Instead, Zelenskyy presented decorations to two Poles involved in helping Ukraine. Zelenskyy said journalist Bianka Zalewska from the U.S.-owned television network TVN had helped provide humanitarian aid to Ukrainians and transport wounded children to Polish hospitals. Combat medic Damian Duda had gathered teams to treat wounded soldiers near the front line and set up a fund to assist medics and provide them with training, he said.
“I would like to thank all of Poland for their invaluable support and solidarity, which helps to defend the freedom of our entire Europe!” Zelenskyy said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Duda explained to Onet that he was awarded the presidential order “For Meritorious Service” Third Class for his work since 2014 as a battlefield medic.
“I work in the Ukrainian trenches, saving Ukrainian soldiers,” he said. “I was there until the end [of the Ukrainian defense] in Bakhmut, in Soledar, in Zaporizhzhia,” he said. “Our work is voluntary, our work is cost-free and I am glad that risking our lives to help another human being has been noticed by President Zelenskyy,” the medic said.
Kamil Turecki is a journalist with Poland’s Onet, a sister publication of POLITICO, also owned by Axel Springer.
Ukraine has filed lawsuits against Poland, Hungary and Slovakia at the World Trade Organization (WTO) over their decision to ban grain imports, in a row that has split the EU and could hurt Kyiv’s prospects of joining the bloc.
“It is fundamentally important for us to prove that individual member states cannot ban the import of Ukrainian goods. That is why we are filing lawsuits against them in the WTO,” First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Ukraine Yuliya Svyridenko said in a statement.
Svyridenko added that the lawsuits, together with pressure from the European Commission and other member countries, “will help restore normal trade between Ukraine and neighboring countries, as well as show solidarity between us.”
The decision comes after the three countries rebelled against a European Commission decision last Friday to end temporary import restrictions — implemented in the spring in an attempt to mitigate a supply glut — and once again allow Ukrainian grain sales across the EU.
The bans by the three central European countries are intended to protect their farmers from a surge in exports from grain superpower Ukraine, following Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea.
“We hope that these states will lift their restrictions and we will not have to clarify the relationship in the courts for a long time,” Svyridenko said.
Polish singer Kuba Szmajkowski won an episode of a popular reality TV competition on Saturday after he donned blackface and faux cornrows and said the N-word in a cover performance imitating rapper Kendrick Lamar.
Szmajkowski appeared on the TV show Twoja Twarz Brzmi Znajomo (Your Face Sounds Familiar) to perform a rendition of Lamar’s hit song Humble.
The karaoke-style reality show is a branch of a longstanding international franchise that sees celebrities from that country impersonate randomly assigned musical icons.
Szmajkowski, who is white, took to the stage in dark makeup, fake corn rows and a beard reminiscent of Lamar’s own look in the Humble music video. During the televised performance, Szmajkowski, 21, rapped lyrics that included the N-word, which was not censored in the broadcast.
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He went on to win Saturday’s episode — the second in Twoja Twarz Brzmi Znajomo‘s 19th season — and was awarded a cash prize of 10,000 PLN (C$3,122). He will continue on in the reality competition for a chance to win the grand prize of 100,000 PLN (C$31,220), which will be donated to a charity of the winner’s choosing.
Immediately, Szmajkowski’s performance inspired outrage in Poland and beyond. Anger was only intensified when he shared a video showing his transformation into Lamar. The post is still live on Instagram.
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Each contestant posted video of their musical icon transformations to social media.
The comments on Szmajkowski’s post, both in English and in Polish, accuse him of being racist and insist he apologize for the Humble performance and remove his social media posts.
“This is top racism. Do you not see how inappropriate this is? Not to mention offensive?” wrote one English-speaking Instagram user.
“How are you not ashamed, man? Are there really ‘artists’ in Polish show business so unaware that some things are not done and certain boundaries are not crossed? Doing blackface is not acceptable,” another wrote in Polish.
“You should do this performance in the states, specifically Compton, California!” chided one commenter.
Szmajkowski is not the only Your Face Sounds Familiar contestant to use blackface; in the same episode actor Pola Gonciarz darkened her skin to perform a cover of If I Were a Boy by Beyoncé.
The Polish version of Your Face Sounds Familiar is produced by Endemol Shine, which is owned by the French parent company Banijay.
Banijay told The Guardian that the company “condemns” Poland’s execution of the competition show, as it “contradicts our group’s global values.”
“A subsequent internal investigation is underway and the appropriate measures will be taken,” Banijay said in a statement.
Prior to Saturday, white contestants on Poland’s Your Face Sounds Familiar have donned blackface to perform as Tina Turner, Whitney Houston, Drake and several others.
Kanye West makes his long awaited return to the stage, performing last night in Poland 🔥😳‼️ pic.twitter.com/QYe4ltvyf4
In 2021, after actor Tomasz Ciachorowski performed Stronger by Kanye West while wearing blackface, the TV production said it was “surprised” by the negative feedback.
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“The intention of each star performing on the show, as well as of the whole production team, is to recreate the original performance in the most precise manner, while honouring the original artist,” the show said.
Your Face Sounds Familiar originated in Spain in 2011.
In 2021, the Czech iteration of the competition series banned the use of blackface.
Ukraine is threatening to take Brussels and EU member countries to the World Trade Organization if they fail to lift restrictions on its agricultural exports to the bloc this month.
The country’s grain exports — its main trade commodity — are currently banned from the markets of Poland, Hungary and three other EU countries under a deal struck with the European Commission earlier this year to protect farmers from an influx of cheaper produce from their war-torn neighbor.
The glut, triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its blockade of the country’s traditional Black Sea export routes, has driven a wedge between Ukraine and the EU’s eastern frontline states which have been among the strongest backers of Kyiv’s military fightback.
The restrictions, already extended once, are due to expire on September 15. Amid speculation that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will let them lapse, Poland and Hungary have threatened to impose their own unilateral import bans, in violation of the bloc’s common trade rules.
“With full respect and gratitude to Poland, in case of introduction of any bans after [September 15], Ukraine will bring the case against Poland and the EU to the World Trade Organization,” Taras Kachka, Ukraine’s deputy economy minister, told POLITICO.
Kyiv has argued that the restrictions violate the EU-Ukraine free-trade agreement from 2014.
Kachka’s comments backed up a warning this week from Igor Zhovka, a senior aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. If Brussels fails to act against the countries that violate the trade agreement, Kyiv “reserves the choice of legal mechanisms on how to respond,” Zhovka told Interfax-Ukraine.
The Ukrainian foreign ministry said Kyiv reserved the right to initiate arbitration proceedings under its association agreement with the EU, or to apply to the WTO.
“We do not intend to retaliate immediately given the spirit of friendship and solidarity between Ukraine and the EU,” explained Kachka. But, he added, the systemic threat to Ukrainian interests “forces us to bring this case to the WTO.”
Crisis warning
Russia’s war of aggression and partial occupation has cut Ukraine’s grain production in half, compared to before the war, while Moscow’s withdrawal in July from a U.N.-brokered deal allowing safe passage for some seaborne exports has raised concerns that EU-backed export corridors won’t be able to cope.
The bloc’s agriculture commissioner, Janusz Wojciechowski, struggled to explain to European lawmakers at a hearing on Thursday how Brussels would handle the situation after September 15.
Wojciechowski, who is Polish, also appeared to sympathize with the right-wing government in Warsaw, which has latched on to the fight over Ukrainian grain as a campaign issue ahead of mid-October general elections in which it is seeking an unprecedented third term.
The bloc’s agriculture commissioner, Janusz Wojciechowski, struggled to explain to European lawmakers how Brussels would handle the situation after September 15 | Olivier Hoslet/EFE via EPA
The curbs should be extended at least until the end of the year; otherwise “we will have a huge crisis again in the five frontline member states,” Wojciechowski said, adding that this was his personal position and not that of the EU executive.
The Commission’s decision in April to restrict imports to the five countries, which came with a €100 million aid package, met widespread disapproval from other EU governments and European lawmakers for undermining the integrity of the bloc’s single market.
Kachka, in written comments sent in response to questions from POLITICO, said there was no evidence of price deviations or a significant increase in grain supplies that would justify extending the import restrictions. Kyiv had engaged in “constructive cooperation” with the Commission, the five member states, as well as Moldova, a key transit hub for Ukrainian exports to the EU.
“We got a lot of support for ensuring better transit of the goods through the territory of neighboring member states, including Poland and Hungary,” Kachka said. “During [the] last two months we significantly advanced cooperation with Romania on transportation of goods from Ukraine.”
NATO member Poland held its biggest military parade since the Cold War in an event that marked victory over Soviet forces in 1920 and showcased the country’s state-of-the-art weaponry as war rages in neighbouring Ukraine and defence takes centre-stage ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for October.
The Armed Forces Day parade on Tuesday marked the 103rd anniversary of Poland’s victory over the Soviet Union’s Red Army in the Battle of Warsaw in 1920, during which Polish troops defeated Bolshevik forces advancing on Europe.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has made boosting the Polish armed forces a priority for the country’s ruling nationalists Law and Justice (PiS). With the country’s election campaign in full swing, the immense display of military hardware on Tuesday provided a chance for the government to promote its security credentials.
“The defence of our eastern border, the border of the European Union and of NATO is today a key element of Poland’s state interest,” Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, the chief commander of the armed forces, said in his opening speech at the event.
Crowds, waving national white-and-red flags, gathered in scorching temperatures that reached 35C (95F) to see United States-made Abrams tanks, HIMARS mobile artillery systems and Patriot missile systems on parade through the streets of the capital.
Also on display were F-16 fighter planes, South Korean FA-50 fighters and K9 howitzers. A US Air Force F-35 roared overhead in a sign Poland was also buying these advanced fighter planes. Polish-made equipment including Krab tracked gun howitzers and Rosomak armoured transporters were also featured.
Members of the Polish military forces participate in the annual Armed Forces Day military parade to commemorate Poland’s victory over the Soviet Union’s Red Army in 1920, in Warsaw, August 15, 2023 [Kacper Pempel/Reuters]
Some 2,000 troops from Poland and other NATO countries took part in the parade as well as 200 military vehicles and other equipment and almost 100 aircraft.
“August 15 is not only an opportunity to pay homage to the heroes of the victorious Battle of Warsaw and to thank contemporary soldiers for defending our homeland,” Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak told troops and onlookers who had gathered near the Vistula River.
“It is also a perfect day to show our strength, to show that we have built powerful armed forces that will effectively defend our borders without hesitation,” he said.
[Unofficial translation: Thank you for being with the soldiers of the Polish Army today!]
Poland’s army has more than 175,000 troops, an increase from approximately 100,000 eight years ago, Duda said.
He also said Poland’s defence budget this year will be a record 137 billion zlotys ($34bn) or some 4 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), the highest proportion in all of NATO.
“The goal of this huge modernisation is to equip Poland’s armed forces and create such a defence system that no one ever dares attack us, that Polish soldiers will never need to fight,” Duda said, while voicing his respect for the military.
Responding to criticism that Poland, a nation of some 37 million, was taking out huge loans to make the purchases, Duda said: “We cannot afford to be idle. This is why we are strengthening our armed forces here and now.”
“The security of Poles is priceless,” he added.
Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid, reporting from Warsaw, said that more than 100 years since the war with Soviet forces, “a shadow of war” looms once again on Poland’s borders.
“And that is why the government continues to tell its people that it needs a strong, powerful army,” he said.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Poland’s conservative government has focused on strengthening the armed forces and spent more than $16bn on tanks, missile interceptor systems and fighter jets, many bought from the US and South Korea.
Poland has a border to the east with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad; with Lithuania, a fellow NATO member; and with Russia’s key ally Belarus as well as with Ukraine.
Military upgrades have bolstered Poland’s defence capabilities and some items replaced Soviet- and Russian-made equipment that Poland provided to Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
Poland is building one of Europe’s strongest armies to beef up deterrence against potential aggressors and has increased the number of troops to some 10,000 along its border with Belarus, where it has also built a wall to stop migrants arriving from that direction.
Here is the situation on Tuesday, August 15, 2023.
Fighting
Ukraine downed three waves of Russian missiles and drones targeting Odesa, the army said. Fifteen drones and eight Kalibr-type sea-based missiles were involved in the attack. Falling debris from the destroyed weapons damaged a student dormitory and a supermarket in Odesa’s city centre, leaving three workers wounded.
Russia said its air defence systems shot down unmanned aerial vehicles over its Belgorod region, the TASS news agency reports. It said there were no casualties or damage.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russian weapons were proving their effectiveness in the war against Ukraine and that “much-hyped” Western arms had shown themselves to be “far from perfect”.
Ukraine reported fierce fighting along its entire front line and claimed “some success” in pushing back Moscow’s troops in the southeast of the country. Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said Ukrainian troops had pushed forward around the village of Staromaiorske, about 97km (60 miles) southwest of Russian-held Donetsk, and were pressing on two fronts in the south.
A Russian spokesperson in Ukraine’s Kherson region accused Kyiv’s forces of attacking a monastery in the village of Korsunka as well as a school, TASS reported.
Russia is equipping its new nuclear submarines with hypersonic Zircon missiles as part of the country’s efforts to boost its nuclear forces, the RIA state news agency reported, quoting Alexei Rakhmanov, chief executive officer of the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC). Yasen-class submarines, also known as Project 885M, are nuclear-powered cruise missile submarines built to replace Soviet-era nuclear attack submarines as part of a programme to modernise Russia’s fleet.
Economy
The Russian rouble slid past 100 against the dollar, its lowest level since March 23, 2022. The rouble has shed about 30 percent of its value against the dollar as imports rise and exports decrease since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. On Monday morning, data from the Moscow Exchange showed the rouble trading at 101.01 to the dollar, while against the euro, it fell to a near 17-month low of 110.73.
Military aid
The United States will send Ukraine new military assistance worth $200m. The package includes air defence munitions, artillery rounds, anti-armour capabilities and mine-clearing equipment, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the US for its decision to send Kyiv the assistance package.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal thanked Germany’s finance minister and government for their support in financial aid and sanctions against Russia.
Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, said the provision of long-range missiles, such as the German Taurus missiles Kyiv has asked for, would reduce Russia’s combat capabilities by focusing on “the destruction of rear logistics – warehouses, transportation, fuel”.
Diplomacy
Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu will visit Russia and Belarus this week. “State Councillor and Defence Minister Li Shangfu will go to Russia to attend the 11th Moscow Conference on International Security, and visit Belarus,” a Chinese defence ministry spokesperson said.
Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said employees of Russian institutions in Moldova – the embassy, trade mission and Russian Centre of Science and Culture – as well as their family members have returned to Moscow. Last month, Moldova told Russia to reduce its embassy presence in Chisinau, citing concerns about alleged Russian attempts to destabilise the small state, which borders Romania and Ukraine.
Politics
US Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy met with jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in her third such visit since his March detention in Russia on espionage charges, which he denies, according to the newspaper.
An ally of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny is on trial in Siberia on charges of creating an “extremist organisation”, a court spokeswoman told France’s AFP news agency. Ksenia Fadeyeva, 31, is a former municipal deputy in the Siberian city of Tomsk and headed Navalny’s political office in the city.
Espionage
A major general in Ukraine’s security service has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for high treason, the German press agency, dpa, reported. The intelligence officer was accused of collecting information and passing it on to Russia, the public prosecutor’s office in Kyiv said.
Poland’s Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski announced that two Russian citizens found “distributing propaganda materials of the Wagner Group” have been detained in Warsaw and Krakow. “Both were charged with … espionage and arrested,” Kaminski said on social media.
Black Sea tension
Ukraine condemned what it called “provocative” Russian actions a day after a Russian warship fired warning shots at a cargo vessel in the Black Sea.
Romania aims to double the monthly transit capacity of Ukrainian grain via the Danube River, the country’s Transport Minister Sorin Grindeanu said. Romania could increase Danube River transit capacity by hiring more staff to ease the passage of vessels and finalising connecting infrastructure projects, Grindeanu told reporters. Before Russia pulled out of the Black Sea grain deal, the Danube ports accounted for about a quarter of Ukraine’s grain exports.
Regional security
The United Kingdom said its fighter jets intercepted two Russian maritime patrol bomber aircraft in international airspace north of Scotland, a NATO policing area. The UK said its Typhoon jets routinely scrambled during such incidents to secure and safeguard its skies.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it scrambled a MIG-29 jet after a Norwegian air force plane neared Russian airspace off its Arctic coast. Separately, the ministry said Russian strategic bombers carried out routine flights over international waters in the Arctic.
Russia will deliver S-400 anti-aircraft systems to India within an agreed timeframe, the Russian Interfax news agency quoted a senior Russian defence export official as saying. India is the world’s biggest weapons importer and still primarily uses Russian technology for arms, but officials have expressed concern that Russia’s war in Ukraine could delay deliveries.
Poland’s prime minister plans to hold a referendum asking voters if they are willing to accept “thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa,” as his party attempts to hold onto power at the next election.
Mateusz Morawiecki announced the referendum would be held on the same day as the country’s parliamentary elections in October of this year.
The referendum question was revealed in a video published on Morawiecki’s social media pages. It includes scenes of burning cars and other street violence in Western Europe. It also features footage of a Black man licking a knife in apparent anticipation of committing a crime. Party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski then says: “Do you want this to happen in Poland as well? Do you want to cease being masters of your own country?”
Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on June 2, 2022.
Michal Dyjuk/AP
The timing of the proposed referendum suggests the current prime minister’s party will be using migration as a topic of campaigning ahead of the polling scheduled for Oct. 15.
The ruling Law and Justice Party has long defended the restriction on immigration from Muslim and African countries. However, Poland currently hosts more than a million Ukrainian refugees, who are primarily White and Christian, but some officials have previously made clear that they consider Muslims and others from different cultures to be a threat to the nation’s cultural identity and security.
EU interior ministers in June endorsed a plan to share out responsibility for migrants entering Europe without authorization, the root of one of the bloc’s longest-running political crises.
Europe’s asylum system collapsed eight years ago after well over a million people entered the bloc — most of them fleeing conflict in Syria — and overwhelmed reception capacities in Greece and Italy, in the process sparking one of the EU’s biggest political crises.
The 27 EU nations have bickered ever since over which countries should take responsibility for people arriving without authorization, and whether other members should be obliged to help them cope.
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RADAWIEC DUŻY, Poland — Forget mass campaign rallies: Poland’s ruling conservatives are betting that prayer, straw-weaving contests and homegrown disco hits can win them this fall’s general election.
At an airstrip in Radawiec Duży, in the country’s eastern rural heartland, planes have been cleared to make way for the central stage. Some 200 people are ushered to their seats to the sound of folk music sung by a local choir.
Despite the sweltering summer heat, the men wear dark suits and the women traditional floral dresses and skirts as they gather around the stage. On this otherwise barren stretch of land, everything — and everyone — is adorned with stems of straw.
Dożynki, as the festival is called, is a celebration of rural life and the summer harvest. At its heart lie the elaborate sculptures woven by local peasant women. Later in the day, a competition will be held to choose the best one, from among those crafted into a Polish eagle, storks and even a crucified Jesus Christ.
The festival is held annually, and countless others like it take place throughout rural Poland between August and September. This year, however, it takes on a double meaning, as it melds neatly into a string of what are being cast as “picnics” in which the ruling party is hoping to shore up its support in traditional countryside bastions.
On October 15, Poland will hold a national election in which Jarosław Kaczyński’s ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) wants to win an unprecedented third term in office. To do so, they need the support of rural voters. But amid mass protests by farmers, furious over farm produce pouring across the border from Ukraine, their traditional constituency is wavering.
Preaching to the choir
One by one, local dignitaries take the stage to thank the farmers for their hard work and dedication. Jarosław Stawiarski, the 58-year-old marshall of the Lublin voivodeship, or region, decides to take it up a notch, highlighting that the PiS-led government has done more to help the countryside than any other before it.
“The Polish countryside is the essence of our nation,” he tells the crowd. “The people in power now are doing everything they can to ensure that the farmer’s toil is fairly rewarded. God bless.”
Bishop Mieczysław Cisło leads a traditional Catholic mass with a cautionary message: The secular West is a threat to Poland’s traditional way of life.
“Today a fundamental conflict is taking place over the shape of a united Europe and the attitude of those who are responsible for their homeland, for the nation,” Cisło says.
“People don’t appreciate the great sacrifice, every drop of blood shed for the nation, every drop of sweat from the farmer’s forehead that soaked into the native soil.”
Poland’s education minister, Przemysław Czarnek, breaks bread with participants of the harvest festival in Radawiec Duży | Bartosz Brzeziński/POLITICO
In the VIP tent, Poland’s education minister, Przemysław Czarnek, nods in agreement, as do the local lawmakers, businessmen, military officials and clergymen seated around him.
Soon, everyone will break bread blessed by Cisło.
Target voters
Most of the people gathered at the airstrip, however, are farther afield, mingling among the stands selling curly fries, sausages, beer and tractor-shaped balloons. There’s an amusement park with a 30-meter drop ride and bumper cars. Older children can experience what it feels like to be part of Poland’s burgeoning military by holding a sniper rifle under the watchful eye of a uniformed army officer.
A PiS volunteer collects voters’ signatures. She gets one from a frail 80-year-old man called Marek, who’s biked here from the regional capital of Lublin, about 12 kilometers away.
“Donald Tusk is an anti-Polish German,” he says, referring to the leader of the main opposition group, the Civic Coalition, which is seeking to dethrone the government. “PiS doesn’t lie — at least not usually.”
Older children can experience what it feels like to be part of Poland’s burgeoning military by holding a sniper rifle under the watchful eye of a uniformed army officer | Bartosz Brzeziński/POLITICO
Marek declines to give his full name because he doesn’t trust the Western media.
Back by the stage, the last of the speeches are finished, the straw sculptures are taken down, and the VIP guests disperse.
The organizers are lucky — similar PiS-linked celebrations elsewhere in the country this summer have not gone as smoothly, with one resulting in the near crash of a Black Hawk helicopter worth tens of millions of dollars.
‘Not my vibe’
Soon the stage is being prepared for evening concerts of disco polo, a Polish variant of dance pop that is hugely popular in the countryside.
The crowd has swelled to thousands — but it’s also undergone a generational change.
Patryk Bielak, 30, came with his girlfriend, but they skipped the earlier part of the program.
“We came for Zenek,” he says, referring to one of the disco polo performers. “We’re young, we’re not interested in political pandering.”
Bielak plans to vote for the Civic Coalition.
Disco polo band Bayera on the stage of the harvest festival in Radawiec Duży | Bartosz Brzeziński/POLITICO
Another late arrival, Gabriela Frąk, 20, has opted for the far-right Konfederacja.
“PiS has nothing to offer young people,” she says. “Everything is packaged for seniors who won’t have much influence on what will happen in Poland in 10, 15 or 20 years.”
With just over a month to go before the October election, PiS is still in the lead with 37 percent of the vote, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls. The Civic Coalition is in second place with 31 percent, followed by Konfederacja with 10 percent.
CORRECTION: This story has been amended to correct the first name of Poland’s education minister.
BRUSSELS — Right-wing and Euroskeptic parties are set to surge in the next European election at the expense of centrist parties, exclusive polling analysis by POLITICO’s Research and Analysis Division shows.
If the elections were held today, the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) would become the third-biggest group in the European Parliament — tied with the centrist Renew — with 89 seats.
That would represent a massive 23-seat gain from the 2019 elections for the sometime-Euroskeptic ECR — home of Poland’s ruling nationalist Law and Justice party — with most of the surge coming from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy.
Similarly, the far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) group would make sizable gains, winning 77 seats — a 15-seat rise driven by the Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) recent surge in the polls.
The anticipated rightward swing reflects a broader trend across national elections in Europe, where voters in countries such as Italy, Finland and Greece have increasingly elevated more conservative and hard-right parties.
That said, POLITICO’s analysis shows that the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) would retain its spot as the Parliament’s largest group, despite a predicted 12-seat loss taking it down to 165 seats.
Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany | Rinny Hartmann/AFP via Getty Images
The center-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) would even gain two seats to preserve its spot as Parliament’s No. 2 group, with 145 seats. Renew would drop 12 seats to match ECR in the third slot, the analysis shows.
That means the traditional grand coalition of the EPP, S&D and Renew, which spans the center left to center right, would keep its clear majority over a potential new right-leaning alliance of EPP, ECR and Renew.
Recently, however, the EPP has shown a willingness to partner with ECR, allying with the group to oppose Green Deal legislation.
The election’s biggest losers would be the Greens, which would keep only 48 seats, a loss of 24 spots, while the Left group would gain eight seats but remain the smallest group in Parliament with 45 seats.
Europeans will head to the polls from June 6-9 next year to select the 705 MEPs who represent them in Brussels. The number of MEPs is set to increase to 720 for the 2024 elections but, as the changes still need to be formally approved by the European Council and Parliament itself, the polling estimates are based on a 705-seat scenario.
These seat projections are based on national voting intention polls aggregated in POLITICO’s Poll of Polls, taking into account each country’s current system to allocate Parliament seats.
POLITICO’s Research and Analysis Division also consulted with experts to assign new unaffiliated European lawmakers to their likely groupings.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stepped in to call for restraint late Tuesday in an effort to end an escalating diplomatic spat with Ukrainian ally Poland.
Earlier on Tuesday, Kyiv had summoned Warsaw’s envoy after a senior Polish official suggested Ukraine should be more grateful for the support it has been receiving from Poland since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion last year.
“We greatly appreciate the historical support of Poland, which together with us has become a real shield of Europe from sea to sea. And there cannot be a single crack in this shield,” Zelenskyy said.
“We will not allow any political instants to spoil the relations between the Ukrainian and Polish peoples, and emotions should definitely cool down,” the president added.
Poland has been one of Kyiv’s most vocal supporters since Moscow’s aggression ramped up in 2022. But in recent months, its relations with Kyiv have been hurt by Warsaw’s decision to extend a ban on some Ukrainian agricultural exports, which the Polish government considers a threat to the interests of domestic farmers.
Initially focused on grain, the dispute is now shifting to soft fruit such as raspberries and currants, with Poland’s farmers — who are set to be a key constituency in the upcoming Polish general elections in October — complaining that lower-priced imports from Ukraine are undercutting them.
The brewing contretemps escalated Tuesday after Ukraine summoned the Polish ambassador to Kyiv over “unacceptable” comments made by a senior Polish official.
In an interview with Polish media, Marcin Przydacz, head of Poland’s international policy office, said Kyiv should “start appreciating the role Poland has played for Ukraine in recent months and years” — sparking ire from Ukrainian officials who hauled in Warsaw’s ambassador and prompting Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki then to slap Kyiv down.
“The summoning of the Polish ambassador — a representative of the country that was the only one left in Kyiv on the day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — to the Ukrainian foreign ministry should never have happened,” Morawiecki said.
“Given the enormity of the support Poland has given Ukraine, such mistakes should not happen,” the prime minister added.
Russia’s Wagner Group might carry out “sabotage actions” and their threat should not be underestimated, said Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Thursday, warning that the mercenary group’s provocations are an attempt to destabilize NATO.
Morawiecki and Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nausėda met at the Suwałki Gap to discuss the threat posed by the Wagner forces, some of whom have relocated to Belarus following the aborted mutiny in June against the Kremlin.
“Our borders have been stopping various hybrid attacks for years,” Morawiecki said. “Russia and Belarus are increasing their numerous provocations and intrigues in order to destabilize the border of NATO’s eastern flank.”
Nausėda echoed the sentiment, saying the presence of Wagner mercenaries in Belarus is a security risk for Lithuania, Poland and other NATO allies.
“We stay vigilant and prepared for any possible scenario,” Nausėda wrote on social media. Morawiecki said that the number of Wagner mercenaries in Belarus could exceed 4,000.
The Polish prime minister also thanked Lithuania for “military cooperation and for the joint promise that we will defend every piece of land of NATO countries.”
“Today, the borders of Poland and Lithuania are the borders of the free world that stops the pressure from the despotism from the East,” he said, about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ongoing war on Ukraine.
Nausėda said that any closing of the border with Belarus is a decision that should be taken “in a coordinated way between Poland, Lithuania and Latvia,” national broadcaster LRT reported.
Some Wagner troops have moved to Belarus from Russia under a deal to end the group’s 24-hour rebellion against Moscow led by Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin. The move immediately sparked tension with Belarusian neighbors, prompting Poland to re-station military units to the east of the country, closer to the frontier with Belarus.
Tensions escalated Tuesday when Poland moved troops to its border after accusing two Belarusian helicopters of breaching its airspace. Belarus denied the accusation, but Poland notified NATO and summoned Belarusian representatives to discuss the incident.
Russia said Monday it will closely follow talks on Ukraine set to take place in Saudi Arabia early next month.
Saudi Arabia is planning to host peace talks including Ukraine, Western nations and selected major developing countries in August, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
Russia — which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and continues to pound Ukraine with missile attacks — was not invited to the talks, but Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow will “follow this meeting,” reported Russian state-owned media outlet RIA Novosti on Monday.
“It remains to be fully understood what goals are set and what, in fact, the organizers plan to talk about,” said Peskov, adding that any attempts to promote a peaceful settlement are “worthy of a positive assessment.” Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said there could be no cease-fire while Ukrainian forces are “on the offensive.”
The upcoming Saudi-hosted talks, which could bring together officials from up to 30 countries, are set to take place in Jeddah on August 5 and 6.
The U.K., South Africa, Poland and the EU have all confirmed attendance, and U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is also expected to attend, the Wall Street Journal said. India and Brazil have also been invited.
Earlier this summer, leaders and senior officials from more than a dozen countries gathered in Copenhagen to discuss a possible peace plan for Ukraine.
But some major developing countries are still hesitant to condemn the war, as evident during last month’s EU summit with Latin American leaders.
According to the Journal, officials are hoping the upcoming talks could garner international support for Ukraine’s peace demands, and potentially lead to a summit later this year. Western diplomats reportedly said that Saudi Arabia was picked to host this round of talks partly in hopes of persuading China — which has close ties to Saudi Arabia — to participate.
The pictures posted on the Chinese company’s website show a tall, Caucasian man with a crew cut and flattened nose inspecting body armor at its factory.
“This spring, one of our customers came to our company to confirm the style and quantity of bulletproof vests, and carefully tested the quality of our vests,” Shanghai H Win, a manufacturer of military-grade protective gear, proudly reported on its website in March. The customer “immediately directly confirmed the order quantity of bulletproof vests and subsequent purchase intention.”
The identity of the smiling customer isn’t clear, but there’s a fair chance he was Russian: According to customs records obtained by POLITICO, Russian buyers have declared orders for hundreds of thousands of bulletproof vests and helmets made by Shanghai H Win — the items listed in the documents match those in the company’s online catalog.
Evidence of this kind shows that China, despite Beijing’s calls for peace, is pushing right up to a red line in delivering enough nonlethal, but militarily useful, equipment to Russia to have a material impact on President Vladimir Putin’s 17-month-old war on Ukraine. The protective gear would be sufficient to equip many of the men mobilized by Russia since the invasion. Then there are drones that can be used to direct artillery fire or drop grenades, and thermal optical sights to target the enemy at night.
These shipments point to a China-sized loophole in the West’s attempts to hobble Putin’s war machine. The sale of so-called dual-use technology that can have both civilian and military uses leaves just enough deniability for Western authorities looking for reasons not to confront a huge economic power like Beijing.
The wartime strength of China’s exports of dual-use products to Russia is confirmed by customs data. And, while Ukraine is a customer of China too, its imports of most of the equipment covered in this story have fallen sharply, the figures show.
Russia has imported more than $100 million-worth of drones from China so far this year — 30 times more than Ukraine. And Chinese exports of ceramics, a component used in body armor, increased by 69 percent to Russia to more than $225 million, while dropping by 61 percent to Ukraine to a mere $5 million, Chinese and Ukrainian customs data show.
“What is very clear is that China, for all its claims that it is a neutral actor, is in fact supporting Russia’s positions in this war,” said Helena Legarda, a lead analyst specializing in Chinese defense and foreign policy at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, a Berlin think tank.
Were China to cross the red line and sell weapons or military equipment to Russia, Legarda said she would expect the EU to enforce secondary sanctions targeting enablers of Putin’s war of aggression.
But, she added, equipment like body armor, thermal imaging, and even commercial drones that can be used in offensive frontline operations are unlikely to trigger a response.
“Then there’s this situation that we’re in at the moment — all these dual-use components or equipment and how you handle those,” Legarda explained. “I would not expect the EU to be able to agree to sanctions on that.”
Disappearing customer
Shanghai H Win, like other Chinese companies producing dual-use equipment, has enjoyed a surge in business since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
According to customs records obtained by POLITICO, Russia has ordered hundreds of thousands of bulletproof vests and helmets made by Shanghai H Win | Genya Savilov/AFP via Getty Images
“Because of the war, a lot of trading companies are looking for us and ask: ‘Are you making this kind of vest?’ We received a lot of inquiries,” a sales representative told POLITICO over the phone.
At first, the representative said Shanghai H Win wasn’t allowed to export directly to Russia unless the Chinese military issues a certificate and it can provide documentary proof of its final customer.
Yet when asked who the man in the pictures was, and where he was from, the representative denied that he was even a customer — even though the website said so.
“He is our customer’s customer. We cannot ask him directly, ‘Where are you from?’ But I guess maybe he is from Europe — maybe Ukraine, maybe Poland, even maybe from Russia. I’m not sure.”
Shortly after the call, Shanghai H Win took down the post featuring the mystery shopper from its website.
Who are the buyers?
So, who exactly are those customers? Evidence of deals — importers, suppliers, and product descriptions — can be found in a registry of declarations of conformity by anyone with access to the Russian internet who is familiar with international customs classifications.
In an earlier story, POLITICO searched these filings and found evidence that sniper bullets made in the United States were reaching Russia, where they were freely available on the black market.
The declarations enable the final buyer to certify that the products are genuine and, in effect, make it possible to import goods without the express consent of the maker. If goods are traded through an intermediary, the maker may not even be aware that its goods are going to Russia. The registry is, however, searchable so it’s still easy to find the ultimate buyers of the Chinese kit.
One is Silva, a company headquartered in the remote Eastern Siberian region of Buryatia. It filed declarations in January of this year detailing orders for 100,000 bulletproof vests and 100,000 helmets. The manufacturer? Shanghai H Win.
Such importers often bear the hallmarks of “one-day” firms, as shell companies are known in Russia, set up by actors who want to conceal their dealings. They tend to be new, listed at obscure residential addresses, and have few staff or assets. Their financial statements often don’t report the levels of turnover that the filings would imply.
According to public records, Silva was registered only last September. It reported zero revenues for 2022. A Google Street View search of its address in Ulan-Ude, the capital of Buryatia, takes visitors to a dilapidated apartment block.
POLITICO tried to contact Silva but the phone number given on its filings rang off the hook and a message sent to its email address bounced.
The sale of so-called dual-use technology that can have both civilian and military uses leaves enough deniability for Western authorities looking for reasons not to confront China | STR/AFP via Getty Images
Another Russian company called Rika declared a smaller shipment of body armor from Shanghai H Win in March. Before that, in January, Rika declared a consignment of helmets from a company called Deekon Shanghai, which shares an address with Shanghai H Win. The two companies are affiliated, another Shanghai H Win representative said.
A woman who answered the phone at Rika said: “We buy in Russia, not in China.” The company didn’t reply to a follow-up email from POLITICO.
The denial is hardly plausible: In addition to the protective gear, a search of declarations by Rika threw up hits for deals for thermal optical equipment from China. That was corroborated by customs data accessed by POLITICO, which revealed more than 220 shipments, worth $11 million, for thermal optics and protective equipment since the outbreak of the war. Rika advertises Chinese-made night sights right at the top of its website.
Another Russian company called Legittelekom, whose homepage reveals it to be a Moscow freight forwarding company, also appears as a buyer of 100,000 items of headgear and 100,000 suits of outerwear from Deekon Shanghai, according to filings dated last November 24.
A man who answered a call to Legittelekom declined to comment on POLITICO’s findings and would not say whether the company supplied the Russian military.
“This is a commercial activity and we do not disclose our commercial activities,” the man said in response to both questions.
Bigger deal
Then there’s Pozitron, a company based in Rostov-on-Don, the southern city briefly captured by warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenaries in their failed uprising last month. It imported more than $60 million-worth of “airsoft helmets,” “miscellaneous ceramics,” and other items from Chinese firm Beijing KRNatural in November and December 2022, according to customs data shared by ImportGenius.
These flows check out with Pozitron’s own declarations of conformity between late October and December 2022, for a total of 100,000 helmets. The declarations also reveal that Pozitron acquired a range of drones from Chinese multinational SZ DJI Technology Co., Ltd last December.
Although the quantity is unclear, the models specified include ones known to have been used in the Ukrainian theater of war, like DJI’s Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced quadcopter or the Mini 2 lightweight drone.
At first sight, the product descriptions in the declarations and customs records appear harmless enough — the “airsoft helmets,” for example, are said to be for use in paintball games and “not for military use, not for dual use.”
Sanctions and defense experts say, however, that it’s common practice to mislabel dual-use goods as being for civilian purposes when they’re in fact destined for the battlefield.
At any rate, Pozitron, which was only founded in March 2021, is having a very good war: Its revenues exploded from 31 million rubles — around $400,000 — in 2021 to 20 billion rubles — almost $300 million — in 2022, according to its financial statement.
Reached by email, Pozitron’s general director, Andrey Vitkovsky, said that his company has “never imported drones and similar products” from the People’s Republic of China.
“The main activity of Pozitron LLC is the purchase and sale of consumer goods, sporting goods, and fabrics, both produced in the Russian Federation and imported from China,” Vitkovsky added, saying that his company’s activities were “exclusively peaceful in nature, in compliance with all rules and restrictions.”
The denial is typical — Russian companies have good reason to fear Western sanctions if they are implicated in trade that supports the Kremlin’s war effort. After POLITICO reported in March that a company called Tekhkrim was importing Chinese assault weapons, and declaring them as “hunting rifles,” the firm was sanctioned by the United States.
Pozitron is on the West’s radar, said one sanctions expert, who was granted anonymity as they are not authorized to speak publicly.
As for Beijing KRNatural, POLITICO was able to trace a company with a similar name at the address given in the Pozitron filings. The company, Beijing Natural Hanhua International Trade Co., Ltd, is listed as a “small and micro enterprise.” It was founded in April 2022, a few months before the Pozitron deals. Nobody answered when POLITICO called.
Heavenly mechanics
In contrast to the bulk consignments of protective gear that appear intended to equip a large fighting force, the orders for drones found by POLITICO are more dispersed among different buyers — both companies and individuals.
In addition to Pozitron, buyers of drones from DJI and its subsidiaries include firms called Gigantshina and Vozdukh — neither of which responded to emailed requests for comment. Another is Nebesnaya Mekhanika (“Heavenly Mechanics”), which before the war was the Chinese company’s official distributor in Russia.
A DJI spokesperson said that the company and its subsidiaries had voluntarily stopped all shipments to, and operations in, Russia and Ukraine on April 26, 2022 — two months after the war broke out.
“We stand alone as the only drone company to clearly denounce and actively discourage use of products in combat,” the spokesperson said in comments emailed to POLITICO.
DJI said it had also broken off its relationship with Nebesnaya Mekhanika, although the Russian company filed further declarations for shipments of the Chinese company’s drones last September 15 and on March 27 of this year.
The spokesperson said that DJI was not in any way involved in the drafting of the declarations of conformity found by POLITICO: “These documents would have been filled out by Russian parties, and they do not indicate in any shape or form who ex- or imported the products that are being declared conform.”
“We have seen media reports and other documents that appear to show how our products are being transported to Russia and Ukraine from other countries where they can be bought off-the-shelf,” the spokesperson added. “However, it is not in our power to influence how our products are being used once they leave our control.”
Still, a search of ImportGenius shows that a Chinese company called Iflight has continued to ship DJI drones to Nebesnaya Mechnika via Hong Kong, care of a local company called Lotos. The most recent consignment was delivered last October 10. In an apparent anomaly, Russia is stated as the country of origin for the shipments.
Nebesnaya Mekhanika, which still advertises DJI drones on its website, did not respond to a request for comment.
Political will
The trafficking of low-tech body armor to high-tech drones and thermal optics highlights a vulnerability in the Western sanctions regime. The ambiguity surrounding the dual-use status of this equipment, coupled with the fact that a significant portion of it is manufactured in China, seems, at least for now, to have placed the possibility of the West taking meaningful action beyond reach.
Then there is the flow of technology through China that may include components made in the West that could be of direct military use.
Russia is fully aware of the China loophole and is using it to buy Western technology to fight its war against Ukraine, according to a recent analysis by the KSE Institute, a think tank affiliated to the Kyiv School of Economics. More than 60 percent of imported critical components in Russian weapons found on the battlefield came from U.S. companies, the researchers found.
It’s an issue that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken brought up on a visit to Beijing last month — the first by Washington’s top diplomat in five years. He told reporters that China had given assurances that “it is not and will not provide lethal assistance to Russia for use in Ukraine.” Blinken, however, expressed “ongoing concerns” that Chinese firms may be providing technology that Russia can use to advance its aggression in Ukraine. “And we have asked the Chinese government to be very vigilant about that.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters that China had given assurances that “it is not and will not provide lethal assistance to Russia for use in Ukraine” during a visit to Beijing last month | Pool photo by Leah Millis/AFP via Getty Images
France is also concerned that China is delivering dual-use equipment to Russia. “There are indications that they are doing things we would prefer them not to do,” Emmanuel Bonne, President Emmanuel Macron’s top diplomatic adviser, told the recent Aspen Security Forum. Pressed on whether China was supplying weapons, Bonne said: “Well, kind of military equipment … as far as we know they are not delivering massively military capacities to Russia but (we need there to be) no delivery.”
Yet there’s little the West can do to twist Beijing’s arm into halting flows of dual-use products into Russia. Only the United States would have the real power to impose an outright ban on dollar-denominated transactions — as Washington did when it sanctioned Iran over its secret nuclear program.
The EU, however, lacks such a strong sanctions weapon because the euro is far less ubiquitous on global markets. It’s also been hesitant to act. In its latest package of Russia sanctions last month, the EU compiled a list of seven Chinese companies that shouldn’t be allowed to trade with the bloc. But, after lobbying by Beijing, Brussels dropped four companies from the blacklist.
Elina Ribakova, one of the authors of the KSE Institute report, said indirect shipments via China pose challenges in terms of both the scope and enforcement of Western sanctions. Secondary sanctions may not be sufficient, she said. She called for manufacturers to be forced to take responsibility for where their products end up — just as banks were required by regulators to step up customer oversight and anti-money laundering operations in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
“What we can do differently is to create the same infrastructure for the corporates,” explained Ribakova, who is director of the international program at the Kyiv School of Economics. “We have to threaten them with serious fines.”
Maxim Mironov, a sanctions expert and assistant professor of finance at the IE Business School in Madrid, reckons that the West, despite expanding sanctions to punish Putin’s helpers, lacks the political conviction to enforce them against Beijing.
“Do politicians have enough will to put sanctions on China? Basically, the answer is no,” said Mironov.
“China signals: You can try, but I don’t care what you are trying to do,” Mironov added. “And the European Union is like: If you don’t like it, we are not going to do it. And if the Chinese see that, they are just going to continue doing what they think is in their best interest.”
The European Commission, the U.S. National Security Council and the Chinese Mission to the EU did not respond to requests for comment.
Stuart Lau contributed reporting.
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Sarah Anne Aarup, Sergey Panov and Douglas Busvine
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Poland that any attack on Belarus will be considered an attack on Russia, in a direct threat to the NATO country televised on Friday.
“Aggression against Belarus will mean aggression against the Russian Federation,” Putin told a televised Security Council meeting on Friday, shown by Reuters. “We will respond to it with all means at our disposal,” he said.
Putin appeared to be responding to Warsaw’s decision this week to re-station military units to the east of the country, closer to the Belarusian border, following the Russian ally’s hosting of Wagner mercenary fighters.
Putin said that Poland appears to have interests in retaking eastern territories it lost to former Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin, including “a good chunk of Ukraine … to take back the historic lands.” He added that “it’s well known that they dream of Belarusian lands as well.”
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki hit back later on Friday, tweeting that “Stalin was a war criminal, guilty of the death of hundreds of thousands of Poles.” He said that the ambassador of the Russian Federation will be summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Morawiecki’s defense minister defended the relocation of troops on Friday, pointing to reports that the Wagner mercenaries were carrying out training exercises with the Belarusian army.
“Training or joint exercises of the Belarusian army and the Wagner group are undoubtedly a provocation,” said Zbigniew Hoffmann, secretary of the government’s National Security Committee, according to a report by Polish state-run news agency PAP.
Belarus has been Russia’s ally throughout Putin’s war on Ukraine. In addition to hosting the Wagner Group following an insurrection on Moscow led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has allowed Putin to station tactical nuclear weapons on its territory.
Germany said Berlin and NATO were prepared to support Poland in defending the eastern border, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on Friday, according to Reuters.
Bulgaria, meanwhile, has agreed to provide Ukraine with some 100 armored personnel carriers, marking a U-turn in the NATO member’s policy on sending military equipment to Kyiv following the appointment of a new, pro-Western government. The parliament in Sofia late Friday approved the administration’s proposal to make the first shipment of heavy military equipment to Ukraine since the beginning of the war, the AP reported.
Separately, a drone attack on an ammunition depot in Crimea prompted an evacuation and brief suspension of road traffic on the bridge linking the peninsula to Russia, Reuters reported. Sergei Aksyonov, the Moscow-installed regional governor, said on Saturday that there was an explosion at the depot in Krasnohvardiiske in central Crimea but reported no damage or casualties, according to the report.
The brief halting of traffic on the Crimean Bridge came five days after blasts there killed two people and damaged a section of the roadway — the second major attack on the bridge since the start of the war.
Greece wants the EU to stop migrant boats before they even get to Europe.
In an interview with POLITICO, newly appointed Greek Migration Minister Dimitris Kairidis called on the EU to resume an operation that aims to halt migrants before leaving Libya, a common departure point for asylum seekers coming to Europe.
The appeal comes as the Greek government fights off allegations of negligence after a shipwreck killed hundreds of migrants heading for Europe from Libya. Survivors have claimed the Greek coast guard’s attempt to tow the vessel caused it to capsize, and various mediaaccounts have shown the boat was stalled for hours before the coast guard intervened.
“These tragedies will continue to happen unless we stop departures from Libya and other places on ships that are unseaworthy,” Kairidis said. “There will, unfortunately, be cases where it will simply be impossible to always save human life.”
One solution to avoid other tragedies, Kairidis argued, is for the EU to resume “Operation Sophia,” an EU-led naval mission designed to break up smuggling routes in the Mediterranean that was officially shelved in 2020.
“We support the launch of an ‘Operation Sophia-plus’ to break up migrant smuggling routes from Libya,” Kairidis told POLITICO during his first visit to Brussels, where he met EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson.
“EU vessels would station in the Libyan territorial waters with the agreement of the local government, which I am hopeful will accept,” he added.
The EU has not settled on how it should respond to the Adriana shipwreck. The European Parliament on Thursday backed a non-binding resolution urging the EU to establish a Europe-wide search-and-rescue operation for migrants. But some diplomats fear this would only encourage migrant departures from North Africa and feed the business model of people smugglers.
Johansson declined to endorse this approach during a tense hearing on Wednesday.
The Greek proposal is slightly different than the Parliament proposal, however. It would essentially be aimed at blocking boats from leaving in the first place, breaking up smuggling routes through the Mediterranean in the process. But critics point out that Libya has traditionally been reluctant to let EU vessels enter its territorial waters for such efforts, and that its detention centers violate migrants’ rights.
Kairidis also defended the Greek coast guard against criticism that it ignored multiple offers of help from the EU border agency Frontex.
One solution to avoid other tragedies, Kairidis argued, is for the EU to resume “Operation Sophia,” an EU-led naval mission designed to break up smuggling routes in the Mediterranean | Dimitris Kapantais/SOOC/AFP via Getty Images
The minister pointed out that the Greek coast guard has saved thousands of migrants in recent years, and he deferred any judgment on its recent actions to an ongoing national investigation.
“If someone is found guilty, there will be consequences,” he said. “But for the time being we shouldn’t bow to political pressure.”
Kairidis pushed back against testimonies from survivors accusing the Greek authorities of towing the migrant ship and ultimately causing it to capsize. He pointed out that these statements “are not a definite proof,” and that the trawler could not have been towed without the consent of those on board.
The tragedy has increased pressure on Frontex chief Hans Leijtens to end the agency’s operations in Greece due to the country’s lack of cooperation.
But Kairidis warned that such a move would “be totally counterproductive,” as the agency’s work “is of paramount importance to save more lives.”
Separately, the minister defended the Greek government against accusations that it is taking a hardline approach to migration on a par with Hungarian and Polish far-right leaders Viktor Orbán and Mateusz Morawiecki. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a center-right conservative, recently won a resounding re-election victory.
Kairidis also defended the Greek coast guard against criticism that it ignored multiple offers of help from the EU border agency Frontex | Bulent Kilic/AFP via Getty Images
“Mitsotakis is not Orbán,” Kairidis said. “Hungary and Poland don’t want Frontex, and they have voted against the migration and asylum pact” — a reference to the EU’s recent deal to overhaul how it processes and redistributes migrants.
“We have been the swing state to get the pact over the line,” he added.
Kairidis said the far right and the far left were merely weaponizing migration to “destroy the political center, embodied by [French President Emmanuel] Macron and Mitsotakis.”
Ben Cohen wasn’t talking about ice cream. He was talking about American militarism.
At 72, the co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is bald and bespectacled. He looks fit, cherubic even, but when he got going on what it was like to grow up during the Cold War, his tone became less playful and more assertive — almost defiant.
“I had this image of these two countries facing each other, and each one had this huge pile of shiny, state-of-the-art weapons in front of them,” he said, his arms waving above his head. “And behind them are the people in their countries that are suffering from lack of health care, not enough to eat, not enough housing.”
“It’s just crazy,” he added. “Approaching relationships with other countries based on threats of annihilating them, it’s just a pretty stupid way to go.”
It wasn’t a new subject for the famously socially conscious ice cream mogul; Cohen has been leading a crusade against what he sees as Washington’s bellicosity for decades. It’s just that with the war in Ukraine, his position has taken on a new — morally questionable — relevance.
Cohen, who no longer sits on the board of Ben & Jerry’s, isn’t just one of the most successful marketers of the last century. He’s a leading figure in a small but vocal part of the American left that has stood steadfast in opposition to the United States’ involvement in the war in Ukraine.
When Russian President Vladimir Putin sent tanks rolling on Kyiv, Cohen didn’t focus his ire on the Kremlin; a group he funds published a full-page ad in the New York Times blaming the act of aggression on “deliberate provocations” by the U.S. and NATO.
Following months of Russian missile strikes on residential apartment blocks, and after evidence of street executions by Russian troops in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, he funded a 2022 journalism prize that praised its winner for reporting on “Washington’s true objectives in the Ukraine war, such as urging regime change in Russia.”
In May, Cohen tweeted approvingly of an op-ed by the academic Jeffrey Sachs that argued “the war in Ukraine was provoked” and called for “negotiations based on Ukraine’s neutrality and NATO non-enlargement.”
Ben Cohen outside the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington this month, before getting arrested | Win McNamee/Getty Images
I set up a video call with Cohen not because I can’t sympathize with his mistrust of U.S. adventurism, nor because I couldn’t follow the argument that U.S. foreign policy spurred Russia to attack. I called to try to understand how he has maintained his stance even as the Kremlin abducts children, tortures and kills Ukrainians and sends thousands of Russian troops to their deaths in human wave attacks.
It’s one thing to warn of NATO expansion in peacetime, or to call for a negotiated settlement that leaves Ukrainian citizens safe from further aggression. It’s another to ignore one party’s atrocities and agitate for an outcome that would almost certainly leave millions of people at the mercy of a regime that has demonstrated callousness and cruelty.
Given the scale of Russia’s brutality in Ukraine, I wanted to understand: How does one justify focusing one’s energies on stopping the efforts to bring it to a halt?
Masters of war
Cohen’s political awakening took place against the background of the Cold War and the political upheaval caused by Washington’s involvement in Vietnam.
He was 11 during the Cuban missile crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Part of the reason he enrolled in college was to avoid being drafted and sent to the jungle to fight the Viet Cong.
When I asked how he first became interested in politics, he cited Bob Dylan’s 1963 protest song “Masters of War,” which takes aim at the political leaders and weapons makers who benefit from conflicts and culminates with the singer standing over their graves until he’s sure they’re dead.
“That was kind of a revelation to me,” Cohen said. Behind him, the sun filtered past a cardboard Ben & Jerry’s sign propped against a window. “I hadn’t understood that, you know, there were these masters of war — essentially I guess what we would now call the military-industrial-congressional complex — that profit from war.”
Cohen saw people from his high school get drafted and never come back from a war that “wasn’t justified.” As he graduated in the summer of 1969, around half a million U.S. troops were stationed in ‘Nam. Later that year, hundreds of thousands of protesters marched on Washington, D.C. to demand peace.
It was only much later, while doing “a lot of research” into the “tradeoffs between military spending and spending for human needs,” that Cohen came across a 1953 speech by Dwight D. Eisenhower, which foreshadowed the U.S. president’s 1961 farewell address in which he coined the phrase “military-industrial complex.”
A Republican president who had served as the supreme allied commander in Europe during World War II, Eisenhower warned against tumbling into an arms race. “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed,” he said.
“That is a foundational thing for me, very inspiring for me, and captures the essence of what I believe,” Cohen said.
“If we weren’t wasting all of our money on preparing to kill people, we would actually be able to save and help a lot of people,” he added with a chuckle. “That goes for how we approach the world internationally as well,” he added — including the war in Ukraine.
Pierre Ferrari, a former Ben & Jerry’s board member who was with the company from 1997 to 2020, said Cohen’s view of the world was shaped by the events of his youth.
“We were brought up at a time when the military, the government was just completely out of control,” he said. “We’re both children of the sixties, the Vietnam War and the new futility of war and the way war is used by the military-industrial complex and politics,” Ferrari added, pointing to the peace symbol he wore around his neck.
Jeff Furman, who has known Cohen for nearly 50 years and once served as Ben & Jerry’s in-house legal counsel, acknowledged that his generation’s views on Ukraine were informed by America’s misadventures in Vietnam.
“There’s a history of why this war is happening that’s a little bit more complex than who Putin is,” he said. “When you’ve been misled so many times in the past, you have to take this into consideration when you think about it, and really, really try to know what’s happening.”
Ice-cold activism
Politics has been a part of the Ben & Jerry’s brand since Cohen and his partner Jerry Greenfield started selling ice cream out of an abandoned gas station in 1978.
The company’s look and ethos were pure 1960s; they named one of their early flavors, Cherry Garcia, after the lead guitarist of the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia, whose psychedelic riffs formed the soundtrack of the hippy counterculture.
Social justice was one of the duo’s secret ingredients. For the first-year anniversary of the gas station shop’s opening, they gave away free ice cream for a day. On the flyers printed to promote the event was a quote from Cohen: “Business has a responsibility to give back to the community from which it draws its support.”
In 1985, after the company went public, they used some of the shares to endow a foundation working for progressive social change and committed Ben & Jerry’s to spend 7.5 percent of its pretax profits on philanthropy.
In the early years, the company instituted a five-to-one cap on the ratio between the salary of the highest-earning executive and its lowest-paid worker, dropping it only when Cohen was about to step down as CEO in the mid-1990sand they were struggling to find a successor willing to work for what they were offering.
Most companies try to separate politics and business. Cohen and Greenfield cheerfully mixed them up and served them in a tub of creamy deliciousness (the company’s rich, fatty flavors were in part driven by Cohen’s sinus problems, which dulls his taste).
In 1988, Cohen founded 1% for Peace, a nonprofit organization seeking to “redirect one percent of the national defense budget to fund peace-promoting activities and projects.” The project was funded in part through sales of a vanilla and dark-chocolate popsicle they called the Peace Pop.
It was around this time that Cohen opened Ben & Jerry’s in Russia, as “an effort to build a bridge between Communism and capitalism with locally produced Cherry Garcia,” according to a write-up in the New York Times. After years of planning, the outlet opened in the northwestern city of Petrozavodsk in 1992. (The company shut the shop down five years later to prioritize growth in the U.S., and also because of the involvement of local mobsters, said Furman, who was involved in the project.)
Cohen, with co-founder Jerry Greenfield, actress Jane Fonda and other climate activists, in front of the Capitol in 2019 | Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images
Even after Ben & Jerry’s was bought by Unilever in 2000, there were few progressive causes the company wasn’t eager to wade into with a campaign or a fancy new flavor.
The ice cream maker has marketed “Rainforest Crunch” in defense of the Amazon forest, sold “Empower Mint” to combat voter suppression, promoted “Pecan Resist” in opposition to then-U.S. President Donald Trump and launched “Change the Whirled” in partnership with Colin Kaepernick, the American football quarterback whose sports career ended after he started taking a knee during the national anthem in protest of police brutality.
More recently, however, the relationship between Cohen, Greenfield and Unilever has been rockier. In 2021, Ben & Jerry’s announced it would stop doing business in the Palestinian territories. Cohen and Greenfield, who are Jewish, defended the company’s decision in an op-ed in the New York Times.
After the move sparked political backlash, Unilever transferred its license to a local producer, only to be sued by Ben & Jerry’s. In December 2022, Unilever announced in a one-sentence statement that its litigation with its subsidiary “has been resolved.”Ben & Jerry’s ice cream continues to be sold throughout Israel and the West Bank, according to a Unilever spokesperson.
Cohen himself is no stranger to activism: Earlier this month, he was arrested and detained for a few hours for taking part in a sit-in in front of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he was protesting the prosecution of the activist and WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange.
Unilever declined to comment on Cohen’s views. “Ben Cohen no longer has an operational role in Ben & Jerry’s, and his comments are made in a personal capacity,” a spokesperson said.
Ben & Jerry’s did not respond to a request for comment.
The world according to Ben
For Cohen, the war in Ukraine wasn’t just a tragedy. It was, in a sense, a vindication. In 1998, a group he created called Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities published a full-page ad in the New York Times titled “Hey, let’s scare the Russians.”
The target of the ad was a proposal to expand NATO “toward Russia’s very borders,” with the inclusion of Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. Doing so, the ad asserted, would provide Russians with “the same feeling of peace and security Americans would have if Russia were in a military alliance with Canada and Mexico, armed to the teeth.”
Cohen is by no means alone in this view of recent history. The American scholar John Mearsheimer, a prominent expert in international relations, has argued that the “trouble over Ukraine” started after the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest when the alliance opened the door to membership for Ukraine and Georgia.
In the U.S., this point has been echoed by progressive outlets and thinkers, such as Jeffrey Sachs, the linguist Noam Chomsky, or most recently by the American philosopher, activist and longest-of-long-shots, third-party presidential candidate Cornel West.
“We told them after they disbanded the Warsaw Pact that we could not expand NATO, not one inch. And we did that, we lied,” said Dennis Fritz, a retired U.S. Air Force official and the head of the Eisenhower Media Network — which describes itself as a group of “National Security Veteran experts, who’ve been there, done that and have an independent, alternative story to tell.”
It was Fritz’s organization that argued in a May 2023 ad in the New York Times that although the “immediate cause” of the “disastrous” war in Ukraine was Russia’s invasion, “the plans and actions to expand NATO to Russia’s borders served to provoke Russian fears.”
The ad noted that American foreign policy heavyweights, including Robert Gates and Henry Kissinger, had warned of the dangers of NATO expansion. “Why did the U.S. persist in expanding NATO despite such warnings?” it asked. “Profit from weapons sales was a major factor.”
Cohen andGreenfield announce a new flavor, Justice Remix’d, in 2019 | Win McNamee/Getty Images
When I spoke to Cohen, the group’s primary donor, according to Fritz, he echoed the ad’s key points, saying U.S. arms manufacturers saw NATO’s expansion as a “financial bonanza.”
“In the end, money won,” he said with a resigned tone. “And today, not only are they providing weapons to all the new NATO countries, but they’re providing weapons to Ukraine.”
I told Cohen I could understand his opposition to the war and follow his critique of U.S. foreign policy, but I couldn’t grasp how he could take a position that put him in the same corner as a government that is bombing civilians. He refused to be drawn in.
“I’m not supporting Russia, I’m not supporting Ukraine,” he said. “I’m supporting negotiations to end the war instead of providing more weapons to continue the war.”
The Grayzone
I tried to get a better answer when I spoke to Aaron Maté, the Canadian-born journalist who won the award for “defense reporting and analysis” that Cohen was instrumental in funding.
Named after the late Pierre Sprey, a defense analyst who campaigned against the development of F-35 fighter jets as overly complex and expensive, the award recognized Maté’s “continued work dissecting establishment propaganda on issues such as Russian interference in U.S. politics, or the war in Syria.”
Maté, who was photographed with Cohen’s arm around his shoulders at the awards ceremony in March, writes for the Grayzone, a far-left website that has acquired a reputation for publishing stories backing the narratives of authoritarian regimes like Putin’s Russia or Bashar al-Assad’s Syria. His reports deny the use of chemical weapons against civilians in Syria, and he has briefed the U.N. Security Council at Moscow’s invitation.
When I spoke to Maté, he was friendly but guarded. (The Pierre Sprey award noted that “his empiricist reporting give the lie to the charge of ‘disinformation’ routinely leveled by those whose nostrums he challenges.”)
He was happy however to walk me through his claims that, based on statements by U.S. officials since the start of the war, Washington is using Kyiv to wage a “proxy war” against Moscow. Much of his information, he said, came from Western journalism. “I point out examples where, buried at the bottom of articles, sometimes the truth is admitted,” he explained.
He declined to be described as pro-Putin. “That kind of ‘guilt-by-association’ reasoning is not serious thinking,” he said. “It’s not how adults think about things.” When I asked if he believed that Russia had committed war crimes in Ukraine, he answered: “I’m sure they have. I’ve never heard of a war where war crimes are not committed.”
Still, he said, the U.S. was responsible for “prolonging” the war and “sabotaging the diplomacy that could have ended it.”
‘Come to Ukraine’
The best answer I got to my question came not from Cohen or others in his circle but from a fellow traveler who hasn’t chosen to follow critics of NATO on their latest journey.
A self-described “radical anti-imperialist,” Gilbert Achcar is a professor of development studies and international relations at SOAS University of London. He has described the expansion of NATO in the 1990s as a decision that “laid the ground for a new cold war” pitting the West against Russia and China.
But while he sees the war in Ukraine as the latest chapter in this showdown, he has warned against calls for a rush to the negotiating table. Instead, he has advocated for the complete withdrawal of Russia from Ukraine and “the delivery of defensive weapons to the victims of aggression with no strings attached.”
“To give those who are fighting a just war the means to fight against a much more powerful aggressor is an elementary internationalist duty,” he wrote three days after Russia launched its attack on Kyiv, comparing the invasion to the U.S.’s intervention in Vietnam.
Achcar said he understood the conclusions being drawn by people like Cohen about Washington’s interventions in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. But, he said, “it leads a lot of people on the left into … [a] knee-jerk opposition to anything the United States does.”
What they fail to account for, however, is the Ukrainian people.
“In a way, part of the Western left is ethnocentric,” said Achcar, who was born in Senegal and grew up in Lebanon. “They look at the whole world just by their opposition to their own government and therefore forget about other people’s rights.”
Cohen, with late-night TV host Jimmy Fallon in 2011 | Mike Coppola/Getty Images for Ben & Jerry’s
His point was echoed in the last conversation I had when researching this article, with Tymofiy Mylovanov, president of the Kyiv School of Economics and a former economy minister.
“It doesn’t really matter who promised what to whom in the 1990s,” Mylovanov said. “What matters is that there was Mariupol and Bucha, where tens of thousands of people were killed.”
Mylovanov taught economics at the University of Pittsburgh until he returned to Ukraine four days before Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“Things like war are difficult to understand unless you experience them,” he said. “This is very easy to get confused when you are sitting, you know, somewhere far from the facts and you have surrounded yourself by an echo chamber of people and sources that you agree with.”
“In that sense,” he added. “I invite these people to come to Ukraine and judge for themselves what the truth is.”
STRASBOURG — Gather round, gather round, it’s the last big match of the season.
This week, just before lawmakers head into the summer recess, the European Parliament will fight it out over nature restoration.
The EU’s proposal to rehabilitate its damaged ecosystems by 2050 has one last chance at survival in Wednesday’s plenary session. The bill, a key pillar of the bloc’s Green Deal, has limped to Strasbourg to face the full Parliament after failing to pass three committee votes.
If the Nature Restoration Law is rejected on Wednesday, “it’s game over,” said Pascal Canfin, a liberal MEP and chair of Parliament’s environment committee. “Nobody will come back with something else before the next election.”
The vote will be tight. And if the text doesn’t pass, it would be the first major Green Deal legislation to fail in Parliament — adding weight to a conservative campaign to pause environmental lawmaking ahead of the 2024 EU election.
For months, supporters and opponents of the law have been exchanging (metaphorical) punches on social media, in committee sessions and press conferences.
Ahead of the vote, POLITICO looks at the main players in the fight to kill — or save — the Nature Restoration Law.
In the blue corner: The bill’s opponents
1 — Manfred Weber
The European People’s Party has spearheaded a tireless effort to kill off the legislation, arguing that it will have detrimental consequences for the bloc’s farmers by allegedly taking land out of production and jeopardizing food security.
Its leader, Manfred Weber, has been among the most vocal opponents of the bill, seizing on the debate as a way to portray his group as defending farmers’ interests in Brussels.
Political rivals have accused him of using underhand tactics to ensure his MEPs voted against the legislation in the agriculture, fisheries and environment committees, including by substituting regular members with others ready to fall in line — allegations Weber denied. The push has also featured an often bizarre social media campaign to highlight the supposed dangers of the bill, culminating in the group claiming it would destroy Santa’s home in northern Finland.
“This is not the right moment to do this piece of legislation,” Manfred Weber said last month | Philippe Buissin/EP
The EPP leader maintains the group is ready to engage on the legislation — if the Commission comes up with a new version. “This is not the right moment to do this piece of legislation,” Weber said last month.
“Give me arguments, give me a better piece of legislation, then my party is ready to give,” Weber added, calling on the Commission to go back to the drawing board and insisting that achieving the EU’s climate and biodiversity goals can’t come at the expense of rural areas.
2 — Right-wing groups — and a handful of liberals
Weber’s conservative group has found allies further to the right — among MEPs belonging to the European Conservatives and Reformists and the far-right Identity and Democracy.
The ECR’s co-chair, Nicola Procaccini, a close ally of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, called the nature proposal “one of the most significant regulation proposals of the entire legislature,” and said he was “quite convinced” the right-wing alliance could defeat it. He added that it shows alliances are shifting in Parliament: “On the Green Geal it is moving more to the right.”
The EPP’s push has also found support among lawmakers in Renew Europe. About a third of the liberal group — mostly Dutch, Nordic and German MEPs — are set to vote against the bill on Wednesday, mostly out of national concerns.
Swedish liberal MEP Emma Wiesner, for example, has argued that the bill will be bad for Swedish farmers and foresters, while stressing that she still supports “an ambitious climate and environmental agenda.”
3 — Industry lobbies
A host of lobby groups have also come out against the legislation, including those representing European fishermen, foresters and farmers.
The powerful agri lobby Copa-Cogeca — which has been accused of representing the interests of large corporate outfits over smaller farms — has pushed the narrative that burdening farmers with new green obligations while they face the impacts of the war in Ukraine and higher energy prices will threaten their livelihoods.
The draft legislation “is poorly constructed, [and] has no coherent, clear or dedicated budget” to help land managers implement it, the lobby said.
Similarly, some business associations, like the Netherlands’ VNO-NCW, have been critical of the proposal, arguing that it will create a “lockdown for new business and the energy transition.”
A host of lobby groups have also come out against the legislation, including those representing European farmers | Jeffrey Groeneweg/AFP via Getty Images
4 — Skeptical EU countries
Several EU countries have waded into the debate, warning that the new measures would be bad for their farming and forestry sectors, as well as for people’s proprietary rights and permitting procedures for renewable energy projects.
The Netherlands has been particularly vocal against the bill, calling for EU countries to be granted more flexibility in how to achieve the regulation’s targets as it could otherwise clash with renewables or housing projects, for example. “We do have concerns about implementation because of our high population density,” said Dutch Environment Minister Christianne van der Wal-Zeggelink.
Other skeptical countries include Poland, Italy, Sweden, Finland and Belgium.
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo called for hitting “pause” on new nature restoration rules amid a fierce national debate on the legislation.
In the red corner: Its defenders
1 — Frans Timmermans
The EU’s Green Deal chief Frans Timmermans has been on the front lines of the effort to save the nature rules, going toe-to-toe with EPP lawmakers during Parliament committee discussions and calling out misleading statements spread by opponents to the bill.
“Everybody is entitled to their own opinions but not to their own facts,” he told lawmakers in May, stressing that the reason harvests are failing “is linked to climate change and biodiversity loss.”
He’s repeatedly insisted the legislation is intended to help farmers in the long run, as it aims to improve soil and water quality, as well as build resilience against natural disasters like floods, droughts and wildfires. He’s also been adamant that the Commission won’t submit a new version of the bill, as demanded by the EPP.
“There is no time for that,” he explained.
2 — Left-wing groups in Parliament — and (most of) the liberals
The EU’s Green Deal chief Frans Timmermans has been on the front lines of the effort to save the nature rules | John Thys/AFP via Getty Images
The Parliament’s center-left Socialists & Democrats, the Greens, The Left and part of Renew Europe have been vocal advocates of the Commission’s proposal.
Biodiversity loss and climate change are two sides of the same coin, Mohammed Chahim, vice president of the S&D, told reporters. “Not connecting them is either you being naive, at best, and at worst, you really trying to undermine the Green Deal, and that’s what’s happening.”
The Renew group has been divided on the issue, but a majority backed a compromise deal ahead of Wednesday’s vote to try and convince some EPP lawmakers to switch sides and rally enough support in favor of the legislation.
3 —Teresa Ribera
Spain’s environment minister has come out in favor of the proposal, defending its importance both at home and at the EU level as a means to increase resilience to natural disasters and climate impacts like drought.
“It is very important not only to conserve but also to restore nature … There will be time to improve what we have on the table but for the time being, the best thing we can do is to achieve an agreement,” Ribera said at an informal environment ministers’ meeting Monday.
Alongside Spain, 19 EU countries supported the adoption of a common stance on the text in June.
Ribera also signaled that the file will be among the Spanish presidency of the Council’s priorities if the Parliament adopts a position allowing MEPs to start negotiations with EU countries.
4 — Big business and banks
A number of multinationals — including Nestlé, Coca-Cola and Unilever — have urged MEPs to back the legislation, arguing that restoring nature is good for business.
The new rules, they say, will boost the EU’s food production in the long term as it will help tackle pollinator decline and increase absorption of CO2 from the atmosphere, lessening climate impacts.
Owen Bethell, senior global public affairs manager for environmental impact at Nestlé, stressed that farmers’ concerns need to be addressed and argued they should receive support to adapt to the new rules. “But in the short term, I think it’s important to maintain momentum on this law because it sends the right signal, that change needs to happen,” he said.
Green activists have led a forceful push to convince lawmakers to back the proposal | Frederick Florin/AFP via Getty Images
The argument that nature is good for business also received backing from Frank Elderson, an executive board member of the European Central Bank, who warned: “Destroy nature and you destroy the economy.”
5 — Scientists and NGOs
More than 6,000 scientists have shown support for the Commission’s nature restoration plan, arguing that healthy ecosystems will store greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to the EU’s objective to become climate neutral by 2050.
“Protecting and restoring nature, and reducing the use of agrochemicals and pollutants, are essential for maintaining long-term production and enhancing food security,” they wrote.
Green activists have also led a forceful push to convince lawmakers to back the proposal, staging protests and making arguments to counter the EPP’s narrative on social media.
“The European Parliament must stay strong against the falsified pushbacks of the conservatives and take firm action to protect citizens from the devastating impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss,” the WWF said in a statement ahead of the vote.
Watching from the sidelines
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a member of the EPP, has stayed conspicuously quiet on the issue, despite mounting calls for her to get involved and help save the bill.
The situation is a Catch-22 for the German official: The nature bill is part of the Green Deal on which she staked her reputation and reelection as Commission president, but speaking in support of it would involve going against her party’s official position.
“I still expect a public reaction from her,” said the S&D’s César Luena, the lead MEP on the file. “Or if it’s not public, then a reaction inside the EPP,” he added, suggesting that her silence could be held against her in a bid for reelection next year if the legislation doesn’t pass this week.
The detention brings the total number of people rounded up in an espionage probe to 15, the interior minister says.
Poland has detained a member of a Russian spy network, bringing the total number of people rounded up in an investigation to 15, according to Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski.
A hub for Western military supplies to Ukraine, Poland says it has become a key target of Russian spies and it accuses Moscow of trying to destabilise it.
“The Internal Security Agency has detained another member of the spy network working for Russian intelligence,” Mariusz Kaminski said on Monday in a post on Twitter.
“The suspect kept surveillance of military facilities and seaports. He was systematically paid by the Russians.”
The Russian embassy in Warsaw did not immediately react to the development.
Ukrainian citizen
Prosecutors said in a statement that the individual arrested was a Ukrainian citizen who had been in Poland since 2019 and that he could face up to 10 years in prison if found guilty.
He will be kept in pre-trial detention, prosecutors said.
In June, Poland detained a Russian professional ice-hockey player on spying charges.
Russia said at the time it had demanded an explanation from Poland over its arrest of Russian citizens.
In March, Poland said it had broken up a Russian espionage network and detained nine people it said were preparing acts of sabotage and monitoring rail routes to Ukraine.
The following month Poland said it was introducing a 200-metre (218-yard) exclusion zone around its Swinoujscie Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal, citing concerns over Russian espionage.
Prosecutors said on Monday that further arrests as part of the investigation could not be ruled out.
BRUSSELS — EU countries are bickering over granting billions in new funds to deal with migration as asylum applications soar and backlogs pile up at the Continent’s borders.
Germany, which received a quarter of all EU asylum applications in 2022, specifically wants to “revitalize” the EU’s ties with neighboring Turkey, according to a senior German official — a nod to the last time the bloc faced such levels of migration.
Then, in 2016, the EU offered Turkey billions in exchange for the country housing thousands of Syrian refugees fleeing civil war. Now, there is a push to authorize up to €10.5 billion in new money for not just Turkey, but also countries like Libya or Tunisia, hoping it would help them prevent people from entering the EU without permission.
The debate has jumped onto the agenda of an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday. And countries are sparring over whether to reference a monetary request in the meeting’s final conclusions, according to five diplomats and officials from four different countries.
The behind-the-scenes fight illustrates how much migration has come to dominate the political agenda. Organizers for the summit had hoped to keep the divisive migration talk to a minimum in favor of discussions on Russia, China and economic security. But with high-profile disasters like the recent migrant shipwreck near Greece and arrival figures continuing their steep climb, the heated issue is becoming increasingly hard to avoid.
Notably, draft conclusions for the summit, dated Wednesday evening and seen by POLITICO, still had two indirect references to the fresh migration funds: The €10.5 billion pot and another €2 billion for “managing migration” within the EU’s own borders.
Whether that language survives until Friday is another question.
Germany: Let’s talk Turkey, not money
Germany, as always, is one of the key players in the debate — and in this instance, it is making arguments for both sides.
On one side, Berlin wants to renew the EU’s relationship with Turkey, hoping it can take in more asylum seekers and help cut down on unauthorized border crossings. In return, the Germans want the EU to improve trade ties with the country.
On the other side, however, Berlin is fiercely opposing the attempt to explicitly mention money in the summit conclusions. The logic: Committing to fresh billions now would imperil upcoming talks over whether to add €66 billion to its budget. Germany wants to discuss the whole package at once, instead of approving parts of it in advance.
As of Wednesday night, the summit conclusions draft still contained an indirect endorsement of the money.
Germany, as always, is one of the key players in the debate — and in this instance, it is making arguments for both sides | David Gannon/AFP via Getty Images
The document mentions “financing mechanisms” — seen as a reference to the €10.5 billion — for “the external aspects of migration.” That money would go to countries like Turkey, Libya and Tunisia, which migrants often traverse on their way to Europe.
There’s also an indirect reference to the €2 billion for internal EU migration management. The text calls for “support for displaced persons,” particularly from Ukraine, via “adequate and flexible financial assistance to the member states who carry the largest burden of medical, education and living costs of refugees.” Translated, that would mean more money for countries that host the bulk of Ukrainian refugees, like Poland and Germany.
Yet during a meeting of EU ambassadors on Wednesday, German officials urged their counterparts to cut or massively reduce both passages, according to the five diplomats and officials, who, like other officials in this story, were granted anonymity because they are not allowed to publicly discuss the talks.
As of Wednesday night, that appeal had failed. But German Chancellor Olaf Scholz may take up the issue himself with his counterparts on Thursday.
The German argument is that including the figures would mean EU leaders are essentially making a big step toward endorsing the full budget package — which the European Commission requested just last week — before even discussing it, two of the officials said.
Nevertheless, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is expected to briefly present her €66 billion budget plan during the gathering of EU leaders on Thursday, meaning there will likely be an initial debate about the money, the officials said.
Von der Leyen’s plans are expected to run into resistance from a number of countries, particularly the so-called “frugal” countries, including Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden.
Speaking to a briefing for reporters in Berlin on Wednesday, a senior German official also voiced caution about von der Leyen’s plan.
“One of the questions is: Is the Commission’s assessment of the situation convincing?” said the senior official, who could not be named due to the rules under which the briefing was organized.
Time to work with Erdoğan again?
At the same time, the senior German official stressed Berlin’s interest in renewing the EU relationship with Turkey.
“[Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan has been re-elected, and this must be an opportunity for the EU to take another broad look at its relationship with Turkey,” the official said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan | Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images
“For us, it’s a matter of putting EU-Turkey relations once again on the agenda … to possibly revitalize them, if all sides want to commit to this,” the official continued, adding that the European Commission and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell should “come back in the fall with proposals.”
One idea could be an update of the EU’s trade rules with Turkey — a thorny issue, though, as talks between Brussels and Ankara have failed to make progress on modernizing the so-called EU-Turkey customs union for several years.
Germany’s Scholz held a phone call with Erdoğan on Wednesday during which both leaders discussed how “to cooperate further and deepen exchanges on various cooperation issues,” according to Steffen Hebestreit, Scholz’s spokesperson.
Any progress in EU-Turkey relations would also require the agreement of the EU countries perpetually at odds with Turkey — Greece and Cyprus.
At least in that sense, there seems to be progress: “We agreed to include a paragraph on Turkey and the future relations,” a Greek diplomat said.
The latest draft conclusions from Wednesday evening ask Borrell and the Commission “submit a report” on EU-Turkey relations “with a view to proceeding in a strategic and forward-looking manner.”
Barbara Moens, Jakob Hanke Vela, Lili Bayer, Jacopo Barigazzi and Gregorio Sorgi contributed reporting.
