Poland’s President Duda Compares the Warsaw 1944 Uprising against Nazi Occupation to the Battle of Mariupol
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Duda has sought to merge Poland and Ukraine into a de facto confederation since his historic trip to Kiev in late May, to which end his government is actively inventing new so-called “national myths” to justify this geopolitical project aimed at legitimizing his country’s regional hegemonic goal. The latest one is that the Warsaw Uprising and Battle of Mariupol are supposedly the same even though this isn’t factually true.
Polish President Duda disrespected the Warsaw Uprising by comparing it to the Battle of Mariupol during his speech at a photo exhibition of both events. He asked, “How similar are those photographs? How identical is the bestiality of those who kill, demolish and destroy the lives of innocent people? These photographs are disturbing, some of them very much so, but they reflect the disturbing reality of Warsaw during World War II, especially during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, when fighting was under way here and when the Germans were ruthlessly killing civilian residents in the Polish capital. And sadly today’s Russian invasion of Ukraine is similarly ruthless.”
Regardless of his counterfactual rhetoric, these two events have nothing in common. The Warsaw Uprising was carried out by Poles against their genocidal Nazi occupiers who had already slaughtered six million of them in the span of less than six years, many of whom were exterminated at the many Nazi death camps that the fascist forces established on occupied Polish territory. The Battle of Mariupol, by contrast, was fought by Neo-Nazis against the anti-fascist alliance of Russia and the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). Neither Moscow nor its regional ally committed genocide against the locals unlike those Ukrainian forces who’ve been carrying out such crimes for over the past eight years.
The only superficial comparison between the Warsaw Uprising and the Battle of Mariupol is that both cities were destroyed due to street-by-street combat, but there’s nothing else in common between them. The Polish rebels were punished by their Nazi occupiers for daring to rise up against them while the Ukrainian occupiers punished the locals in a similar way as their Nazi idols did the Poles for the exact same reason related to them rebelling against fascist occupation. The Nazis against whom the Poles fought in Warsaw wanted to indefinitely perpetuate their genocide while the Russian and DPR forces against whom Ukraine’s Neo-Nazis fought in Mariupol wanted to end Kiev’s genocide of the locals.
Falsely comparing these two events like Duda just did is a shameless example of information warfare, which is being waged against both Russia as well as his own Polish people. It’s obvious what this provocation intended to achieve with respect to worsening the first-mentioned’s international reputation while it’s less clear to casual observers what it meant to accomplish when it comes to Poles. Duda has sought to merge Poland and Ukraine into a de facto confederation since his historic trip to Kiev in late May, to which end his government is actively inventing new so-called “national myths” to justify this geopolitical project aimed at legitimizing his country’s regional hegemonic goal.
The latest one is that the Warsaw Uprising and Battle of Mariupol are supposedly the same even though this isn’t factually true as was just explained. The purpose in pushing this false comparison is to artificially manufacture popular support for Poland’s post-modern expansionism into that crumbling former Soviet Republic, which many at home are increasingly becoming skeptical about after it’s led to unexpected costs for average Poles, especially since it appears as though Germany played Poland into being its “useful idiot” for expanding the EU’s influence there. For that reason, Warsaw is desperate to emotionally manipulate its people into supporting this geopolitical project on a false propaganda basis.
Therein lies the perniciousness of the counterfactual comparison between the Warsaw Uprising and the Battle of Mariupol. Duda disrespected the martyrs, survivors, and their descendants of the first-mentioned by implying that they’re no different than the Ukrainian Neo-Nazis who lost Donbass’ most important port. Ironically, those same so-called “defenders” also glorify their descendants who genocided over 100,000 Poles in Volhynia during World War II, which makes Duda’s comparison doubly disrespectful but exposes how actively his government is engaging in historical revisionism in its desperate bid to artificially manufacture popular support for its de facto confederation with Ukraine.
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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.
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