Few relationships have curdled as visibly this year as Ukraine's ties with Poland, Kyrylo Budanov, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said in an interview with RBC-Ukraine.
About a week before this interview, Budanov had warned publicly that the standoff's worst moment might still be ahead — a forecast he repeated without softening.
"İyulun 11-i Volin faciəsinin ildönümüdür. Məndə olan məlumata görə, onlar, mənim fikrimcə, gərginliyin artmasına gətirib çıxaracaq bir sıra yetkin olmayan addımlar hazırlayırlar. Buna görə də görünür, bütün bunlar davam edəcək", – Budanov bildirib.
With the July 11 anniversary of the Volyn tragedy now less than a week away, he said his information points to a "whole series of, as I see it, immature escalatory steps" still being prepared in Warsaw, and expects the friction to continue accordingly.
"The last one who tried to give us an ultimatum was the Russian Federation," he said. "No offense to Poland, but it's somewhat more powerful than Poland — and we didn't accept its ultimatum either. Yes, it was hard, it was bad, there was a lot of blood. But we didn't accept even their ultimatum. So why would anyone think we'd accept something else from another side? You don't negotiate with us through ultimatums."
His prescription for Ukraine's own conduct is restraint rather than preemption — absorbing what he calls Poland's immature steps without matching them, while reserving the right to respond once Warsaw actually acts. Whether the standoff ends in catastrophe or de-escalation, he said, is still an open question, though he professed hope for the latter.
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