Polish President Andrzej Duda will visit Ukraine on October 12-13.

This was announced by the Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Igor Zhovkva.

According to him, the Polish leader will discuss with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other representatives of the Ukrainian authorities the prospects for economic cooperation, political issues and the historical past.

Duda is to visit Kiev, as well as Odessa, where a business event will be held dedicated to the development of the city's port infrastructure.

“We are talking not only about politics, about the historical past, which, of course, will be discussed during the visit, but also about our economic relations.

Indeed, in terms of trade, Poland is one of our largest partners in Europe, ”Zhovkva said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

"Tough" negotiations

It was originally planned that Duda would come to Ukraine in April of this year.

The Polish leader, in particular, was going to honor the memory of the victims of the Katyn tragedy.

However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the visit was postponed.

The previous time Duda visited Ukraine on a working visit on December 13, 2017 - then he visited Kharkov.

According to the Ukrainian media, Duda did not have a relationship with the previous president, Petro Poroshenko.

The stumbling block was Kiev's moratorium on the search and exhumation of ethnic Poles who died in Ukraine.

  • Andrzej Duda and Petro Poroshenko

  • Reuters

  • © Gleb Garanich

As a retaliatory measure, in mid-November 2017, Warsaw banned the entry into the country of the secretary of the Ukrainian State Interdepartmental Commission for the perpetuation of the memory of the participants in the anti-terrorist operation, the memory of the victims of the war and political repression, Svyatoslav Sheremet, who in Warsaw was considered responsible for such a decision.

In addition, earlier Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski stressed that persons who demonstrate anti-Polish sentiments, wear the uniforms of the SS Galicia division, and prevent the restoration of memorable places for Poles will not enter the country.

In 2017, ahead of Duda's visit, his administration announced that negotiations with Kiev promised to be "frank, difficult and tough."

Following the meeting of the Polish president with Poroshenko, Warsaw tentatively agreed to reduce the blacklist, and Ukraine to lift the moratorium on searches and exhumation of the dead Poles.

However, relations between states have not improved.

Duda and Poroshenko no longer held bilateral meetings.

In July 2018, the President of Poland traveled to western Ukraine to honor the memory of the victims of the Volyn massacre - the mass destruction of the Polish civilian population by the OUN-UPA * militants in 1943.

At the same time, Poroshenko took part in commemorative events in the Polish village of Sagryn, where in March 1944 the Home Army and the peasant militia killed up to 1.3 thousand Ukrainians, most of whom were civilians.

Commenting on the tragic events on his Twitter, Poroshenko called for mutual forgiveness.

In September, Kiev issued an ultimatum to Warsaw: the moratorium on the exhumation of the bodies of Poles will be lifted only after the restoration of monuments to Ukrainian nationalists destroyed in Poland.

Warsaw did not make concessions to Kiev, and in December 2018 Poroshenko equated the OUN-UPA participants with combat veterans.

Recall that the official Warsaw recognizes the punitive operations of the units of Ukrainian nationalists in the service of the Third Reich as genocide.

According to the estimates of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, more than 100 thousand Poles became victims of the OUN-UPA militants.

  • Veteran of the Ukrainian nationalist formation during the Second World War

  • Twitter

  • © @UkrMediaNetwork

Experts believe that the contradictions between Warsaw and Kiev over assessments of the historical past are insoluble in the context of the continuing popularization of nationalist ideology in Ukraine.

“Of course, the era of armed conflicts between Ukrainians and Poles is over.

In addition, the state borders of the two states coincide with ethnic ones.

However, the issue of historical memory remains acute and topical.

The possibility of a common approach is not visible here, "Nikolai Mezhevich, chief researcher at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, explained in an interview with RT.

In a commentary on RT, political analyst Yuri Bondarenko emphasized that a compromise between the two states can only be achieved if official Kiev gives up its positions.

“The Polish authorities do not want to seriously quarrel with the Ukrainian political class, but they do not refuse to impose their own vision of history.

Kiev tries not to succumb to the concessions and tricks of Warsaw.

Concessions from Kiev are possible only for big money, but Poland is not the richest country in the European Union.

I don’t think it can give anything to Ukraine, ”says Bondarenko.

"Reduce the degree of emotions"

At the same time, experts note that since Zelenskiy came to power, there has been a tendency for improvement in relations between Kiev and Warsaw.

The two leaders met in September 2019 in the Polish capital and at the end of January 2020 at events dedicated to the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

The current visit to Ukraine is Duda's second foreign visit after being reelected in July this year.

In previous negotiations with Duda, Zelensky said that Kiev again allowed the search and exhumation of the bodies of the dead Poles and now expects a reciprocal gesture from Warsaw - the restoration of the previously damaged monument to the UPA militants on the Monastery Mountain near the village of Verhrata, Podkarpackie Voivodeship.

“We managed to reduce the degree of emotions around the common tragic past, and today our countries are moving forward with an open heart into the future.

From now on, in our relations, we focus on what unites us, "Zelensky declared.

However, as follows from a telephone conversation on September 11 between Duda and Zelenskiy, Poland never carried out restoration work.

Officially, their completion was not announced, but, according to the agency "Ukrinform", a few days before Duda's visit, a new memorial plate appeared at the burial site of the UPA fighters, different from the previously destroyed tablet.

Another vital topic of Polish-Ukrainian relations is economic cooperation.

Kiev is counting on Polish investments in infrastructure projects.

During a visit to Warsaw in September last year, Zelenskiy said that he was “personally ready to protect all investments” in the Ukrainian economy.

“We have already prepared more than 70 draft laws.

We are talking about the reform of the law enforcement and judicial systems.

There are a lot of bills to improve the investment climate and for business, ”Zelensky said.

According to experts, in reality, Warsaw has neither the funds nor incentives for large-scale investments in the Ukrainian economy.

As Nikolai Mezhevich explained, both states compete in the agricultural market.

Poland's investment interest can only be associated with the exploitation of Ukrainian chernozems, the analyst says.

In an interview with RT, political scientist and economist Alexander Dudchak noted that Ukraine is interested in Warsaw mainly as a supplier of cheap labor and a market for Polish products.

“There is no need to talk about serious investments in Ukraine.

Zelenskiy, as I understand it, hopes to attract money to infrastructure and gambling business.

But Poland has completely different goals.

Under the guise of capital investments, the Poles may well promise some kind of loan; one should not expect real generosity from Warsaw, ”Dudchak stressed.

* Organization of Ukrainian nationalists - "Ukrainian Insurgent Army" (OUN-UPA) - a Ukrainian organization recognized as extremist and banned in Russia (decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of 11/17/2014).