Will Poland Prop up Poroshenko with More Right-Wing Militants?

Andrew Korybko is our regular contributor. This article also appeared at Oriental Review

Poland has been the US’ primary Lead From Behind partner ever since thebeginning of the Ukrainian Crisis, having trained some of the rioters prior to EuroMaidan and supplied mercenaries to the fratricidal battlefield shortly thereafter.

Continuing its trend of destabilization, Poland has announced its intention to deepen its role in the civil war next door, proclaiming that it’s “open” to selling Ukraine weapons provided that the bankrupt state can cough up the cash. Not only that, but it appears poised to use its recently established “civilian military training” program as a front for training countless pro-Kiev irregulars to assist in the War on Donbass.

There’s a sense of urgency underpinning Poland’s actions, however, since if Poroshenko’s power isn’t propped up soon (preferably with foreign fighters and/or military successes), he runs the risk of being overthrown in a radical right-wing coup. Unintentionally, though, Poland’s militant training may have the effect of increasing right-wing terrorism all across Europe, which would create a runaway ideological monster that can deepen the continent’s divisions and tear apart some of its more liberal-multicultural societies.

The Proxy Hive

While being billed as a seemingly ‘defensive’ (if paranoid) initiative, Poland’s ‘civilian military training’ program also has covert offensive capabilities, in that the trained individuals may put their newly acquired military experience to use next door as pro-Kiev ‘volunteers’. This wouldn’t be anything new, however, since American and other foreign mercenaries have already been fighting on Kiev’s side for some time now, but the key difference between them is that while the non-Polish  mercenaries wage war primarily for money, the Polish ones are doing so out of their sense of ‘Polish patriotism’. Poles have long held the notion that Western Ukraine is an historical part of their country and that Lvov is one of the most significant cities in their history, so when the Color Revolution coup was finally successful in Ukraine, they saw an opportunity to once again subjugate the country under their suzerainty. This makes their ‘volunteers’ more zealous and determined to win than the other Westerners fighting for Kiev, since they feel (whether right or wrong) that this is a conflict in which they have a personal stake due to the ‘historical-patriotic’ ideology that guides their actions.

All of Poland’s neo-imperial plans could be for naught, however, if Poroshenko, the consummate pushover, doesn’t remain in power. His forced replacement by extreme right-wing nationalists (even with the support of the US) could mean that Kiev would no longer consent to being a Polish colony, hence why it is absolutely imperative for Poland to keep their preferred proxy in power through fighters and arms. Control over Ukraine (either singular or shared with the US) and the subsequent pseudo-reestablishment of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is of the highest priority for the Polish political class. Since their 40-million-plus-strong population has been steadily indoctrinated with this ideology for over two decades already, the entire country has turned into a buzzing proxy hive of destabilization that is on the verge of being unleashed against Ukraine with the advent of the ‘civilian military training’ project.

The Plots Against Poroshenko

Poland’s man in Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, has predictably found himself in hot water for his handling of the country’s civil war, and Poland will have its hands full in trying to stem the growing opposition to his rule. The conflict in Donbass has proved to be a bloody failure so far, and with thousands of pro-Kiev soldiers encircled at the moment and facing imminent defeat or surrender, the pressure is only expected to keep mounting against the beleaguered ‘president’. Even before Kiev’s rapid military reversals in the past few days, the alternative media was already abuzz about talk of a forthcoming right-wing coup against Poroshenko. Members of the Aidar Battalion, one of Pravy Sektor’s fascist counterparts that has been accused of war crimes by Amnesty International, agitated outside the Ukrainian Defense Ministry on Saturday against their official disbandment, illustrating the tense relationship between official Kiev and its unofficial death squads.

In what now appears to be a prescient assessment, former Ukrainian presidential hopeful and current prominent Novorossiya activist Oleg Tsarov posted on his Facebook last week that US and right-wing Ukrainian elements were conspiring to plot a coup against Poroshenko. Taken in conjunction with the current Aidar protests, it may appear that this is the first tangible step towards that goal, and the prospect may emerge that other irregulars such as the Azov Battalion could join in the rebellion to sweep Poroshenko from power. The author discussed this possibility of a ‘Third Color Revolution’ in an earlier publication from October, whereby Pravy Sektor was then identified as the most likely initiator of a coup at that time. Nonetheless, if the Azov Battalion joins forces with their Aidar allies to overthrow Poroshenko instead of Pravy Sektor, then they’ll likely install Igor Kolomoysky in his place. The Ukrainian-Jewish oligarch is Kiev’s appointed governor of Dnipropetrovsk and the leader of the Azov Battalion, and his associated political, economic, social, and military connections may make him a valuable asset in the eyes of the US, and consequently, they may help him come to power as their preferred replacement for Poroshenko.

Poland And The Pandora’s Box Of Right-Wing Terrorism

Faced with the very realistic threat that an extreme right-wing coup could be carried out against Poroshenko in the coming months, Poland made the decision to open up its proxy training camps on 1 March. It is not known how long the ‘civilian volunteers’ will train for, nor if there will be different tiers for various specializations (e.g. demolition, sabotage, etc.), but it is argued that many of the militant ‘graduates’ will migrate over to Ukraine to assist Poroshenko’s forces in Donbass, with the hope that they will help tilt the war in Kiev’s favor, stave off the growing coup concerns, and provide loyal security to the ‘president’. They might even be more highly trained than the Ukrainian National Guard fighting on the front lines, whose members are reported to only have three weeks of training before their deployment.

One must also keep in mind that the Polish ‘volunteers’ would be fighting on behalf of their ‘historic-patriotic’ ideology, meaning that they may not desert at the same high rate as the reluctant Ukrainian conscripts or require the threat of ‘barrier troops’ to prevent them from retreating under the pane of death. Stepping back and looking at the situation structurally, Poland is essentially training ideologically motivated militants for deployment in a foreign warzone, which looks eerily similar to what Turkey has been doing for the past couple years. While Turkey was (and still is) training extreme Islamists, Poland is training extreme right-wing nationalists, of which it happens to have its own problem with. Since Poland seems intent to become the ‘Slavic Turkey’ at all costs, it may turn out that its radical nationalist militants become a pan-regional problem in the same manner as Turkey’s radical Islamist ones.

In fact, the author wrote this prediction almost exactly one year ago on 21 February, 2014:

Ukraine could quite possibly become a training ground for other European far-right militants, or the ones currently in Ukraine can go on to teach the ‘tools of their trade’ to the highest bidder in other European states. Just as Turkey is supporting the extreme Islamists in Syria via its support for the fighters there, Poland can be said to be flirting with extreme far-right nationalists in Ukraine…And just as the extreme Islamists got out of the control of their handlers and now endanger the entire Middle East, the risk remains that the extreme far-right nationalists may become uncontrollable in Ukraine as well and come to endanger the entire EU. When comparing Poland to Turkey and Ukraine to Syria, it is proven that the Arab Spring has come to Europe in more ways than meet the eye.

Geopolitical analyst Joaquim Flores of the Center For Syncretic Studies followed up with a detailed forecast in mid-September about how extreme right-wing Ukrainian militants can precipitate a European transnational interstate crisis in a similar manner as ISIL has done in the Mideast. Not only that, but remembering that many right-wing Eastern European ‘nationalists’ are Nazi-affiliated, they could, as the author predicted in the above quotation block, also train and cooperate with their ideological brethren further afield in Western Europe to create deeper intrastate divisions along racial and religious lines.

This has become more threatening ever since the Charlie Hebdo attacks blew the lid off the ‘clash of civilizations’ theory that many in Europe are now ascribing to, although the attack’s ultimate legacy will likely be more indicative of an intra-civilizational clash within the West itself. All that it takes for the risk of terrorism to increase in Europe isn’t more returning jihadis (although they’re certainly a serious threat), but a handful of ideologically zealous right-wing militants from Ukraine or unemployed ‘civilian volunteers’ from Poland to train their Western counterparts in the tools of destruction. After becoming versed in their militant training, right-wing terrorists in Western Europe may not only target some of their perceived liberal enemies (as Breivik did with his Oslo bomb), but also ethnic and religious minorities such as the North African Muslims in Paris, who are already experiencing more hate crimes as a result of Charlie Hebdo.

The nightmare scenario would be if a coordinated attack is carried out against both types of these targets inside a major European city, partaken with a level of precision similar to that of the Pakistani terrorists in Mumbai in 2008 (or even the Charlie Hebdo attackers). The effect of this tragic but realistic scenario would be to rip the targeted society apart at its seams (especially if it’s a liberal-multicultural one like France), and this Pandora’s Box of right-wing terrorism becomes ever more probable as Poland continues to pump more right-wing militants into Ukraine and the US supports the existing ones operating in the East.

Concluding Thoughts

Poland-Ukraine_Druk-676x450.jpg

Poroshenko appears to be on the last leg of his throne, not in the sense that the Novorossiyan Armed Forces will overthrow him, but that his own former right-wing supporters will turn on him and stage a coup amidst major losses in the War on Donbass. Warsaw can’t have this happen, since a ruling right-wing Ukrainian ideology is incompatible with Poland’s neo-colonial desires for the country, hence the need to prop up the compliant Poroshenko as their political proxy. The plan to have ‘civilian military training’ programs beginning next month is simply cover for the mass training of Polish pro-Kiev militants to serve as reinforcements in Eastern Ukraine.These fighters are motivated by their ideology of Polish expansionism, and accordingly, they may fight to the death (unlike the reluctant Ukrainian recruits) to guarantee Polish influence over Ukraine via a Poroshenko-led government.

The massive danger with this plan, however, is that more right-wing militants will be active inside Ukraine, meaning that an ever increasing number of ideologically motivated non-state actors will be acquiring not only the skills, but also the experience in military affairs that can be put to use outside the Donbass cauldron. Predictably, the Eastern European right-wing militants (be they Polish or Ukrainian) will transfer their knowledge to affiliated groups in Western Europe either for the right price or out of ideological solidarity, raising the risk that the horrors in Ukraine will be replicated in France, for example. By unleashing the genie and helping right-wing radicalism run wild across Europe, Poland is closely mirroring Turkey’s ISIL legacy in the Mideast, with a similar chance of chaos and unintended blowback.