The headline writes itself: the plucky Ukrainian president, once hailed as the free world’s darling, now finds himself cold-shouldered by Warsaw. A diplomatic freeze that would have been unthinkable two years ago is now the new normal. Poland’s patience, it seems, has worn thin.
The grain dispute, the historical grudges, the exhausting refugee fatigue. It all adds up to a rather inconvenient truth: the much-vaunted unity of the Western alliance against Russian aggression is starting to fray at the edges. And who, pray tell, is left standing firmly in Kyiv’s corner?
Albion. Yes, perfidious Albion, the very entity the Continent loves to distrust, has emerged as Ukraine’s most reliable partner. This is not mere sentiment; it is geopolitical logic.
Britain, unburdened by the existential dread of a revanchist Russia on its borders, can afford to be generous. It can play the role of the remote patron, the offshore balancer, the great power that dispenses arms and advice without fearing the immediate consequences. And this, my friends, is precisely why the relationship works.
The Poles, by contrast, have skin in the game, and quite a lot of it. They have absorbed millions of refugees, watched their farmlands disrupted, and heard the ghostly echoes of Katyn and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Their snub is not irrational.
It is the weary gesture of a nation that has done its part and expects others to do theirs. Zelensky’s recent address to the Polish parliament, where he compared the current situation to the Holodomor, was a needless provocation. But let us not pretend this is a simple morality play.
The West’s support for Ukraine has always been a patchwork of national interests. The Americans have their own strategic calculus, the Germans their addiction to cheap Russian gas, the French their delusions of grandeur. Britain, however, has no illusions.
We know that a free Ukraine is a bulwark against a world order that despises our values. We know that backing down now would embolden the Kremlin and leave us all the poorer. So while the Continent squabbles over grain quotas and historical grievances, London continues to send Challenger tanks and Storm Shadow missiles.
It is a lonely role, but a necessary one. As Rome once stood firm against the barbarians, so Britain stands firm today. The Poles may have wavered, but the lion still roars.
