For years, Poland has been forging close ties with both the US and Ukraine, regarding both as vital to its security. Changes in Washington’s policy are forcing Warsaw to rethink its future, but Polish politicians can’t seem to be able overcome their differences.
Poland, one of Ukraine’s most committed supporters
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Poland has positioned itself as one of Kyiv’s most committed allies, providing military aid valued at approximately €3.23 billion. This support includes around 350 tanks—among them 14 Leopard 2A4s and 280 T-72s—over 250 infantry fighting vehicles, approximately 100 Rosomak wheeled armored personnel carriers, and more than 100 self-propelled artillery units, including Krab howitzers. Poland has also delivered over 30 BM-21 Grad rocket launchers, 14 MiG-29 fighter jets, 12 Mi-24 attack helicopters, and more than 100 million rounds of ammunition. Additionally, Warsaw has supplied Ukraine with 10,000 Starlink units for secure satellite communication and has trained around 25,000 Ukrainian soldiers, including 14,500 under the European Union’s EUMAM mission.
On the humanitarian front, Poland has allocated 4.91% of its GDP to support Ukraine, with 0.71% as direct aid and 4.2% covering the costs of hosting Ukrainian refugees. According to UNHCR data, nearly one million Ukrainian refugees now reside in Poland. In 2022, Poland spent €1.2 billion on refugee assistance, followed by €0.6 billion in 2023. Polish citizens, moved by solidarity, privately contributed approximately €2.4 billion in the initial months of the war.
Poland plays a crucial role in sustaining Ukraine’s war effort, servicing Ukrainian military equipment in Polish defense factories and training troops. The opening of the NATO-Ukraine Joint Analysis, Training, and Education Centre (JATEC) in Bydgoszcz in January 2025 marked another step in deepening security cooperation. Until recently, Poles took immense pride in these contributions. But as geopolitical winds shift, particularly in Washington, the narrative around Ukraine is changing. If, as President Donald Trump claimed at some point, Ukraine instigated the war with Russia and President Volodymyr Zelensky is a dictator (Trump kind of took that back during a press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, saying that he couldn’t believe he said it), what does that make Poland—a nation steadfast in its support for Kyiv? How does President Andrzej Duda reconcile his close ties with both Trump and Zelensky? And how will these contradictions shape Poland’s domestic politics, its upcoming presidency of the Council of the European Union, and its presidential elections in May?
Poland resists pressure to abandon Ukraine
For years, Warsaw operated under the assumption that the United States would never abandon the free world—and by extension, Ukraine. But that certainty is now crumbling. In an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, Poland’s Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski stopped short of outright confrontation with Trump’s team but expressed clear skepticism, sometimes with biting irony. When asked about Trump’s claim that Zelensky started the war, Sikorski responded diplomatically: “Every new administration has a learning curve. It is good that it consults with allies.” The subtext, however, was unmistakable: Trump has been misled by Russian propaganda.
Sikorski pointedly recalled the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, under which Ukraine surrendered its nuclear arsenal in exchange for security guarantees from the United States, Britain, and Russia—assurances that proved worthless when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. The implication was clear: entrusting Ukraine’s fate to Trump would be reckless. In a historical parallel, Sikorski referenced the Munich Agreement of 1938, when Western democracies sacrificed Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany. But this time, he insisted, history would not repeat itself: Ukraine would continue to fight, and Europe would stand firm.
Perhaps the clearest sign of Poland’s divergence from Washington is its refusal to endorse the U.S. draft UN resolution that avoids explicitly naming Russia as the aggressor. "We have to call a spade a spade," Sikorski declared. He noted that if, in 2022, Joe Biden had urged Zelensky to flee Kyiv, it was Zelensky’s own defiance that ensured Ukraine’s continued resistance. Now, Kyiv finds itself in a similar predicament: it must defend its independence not with America’s help, but despite America’s growing ambivalence. Among Poland’s top politicians, Sikorski appears to grasp this reality most clearly—and is unafraid to say so.
Preparing for a future without America’s umbrella
The meeting between Andrzej Duda and Donald Trump, held on February 22 on the sidelines of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), was supposed to be a moment of diplomatic weight—an affirmation of the enduring bond between Poland and its on-again, off-again patron. Instead, it became a study in brevity. The encounter, which began an hour late, lasted less than ten minutes and took place without media presence or preliminary statements. Afterwards, Duda assured reporters that Trump had reaffirmed his commitment to maintaining a U.S. military presence in Poland, as well as strengthening bilateral defense cooperation. But how much weight do these verbal assurances really carry?
Right-wing commentators seized on the mere fact of the meeting as a triumph, arguing that Duda’s presence at CPAC placed him among the world's conservative power brokers at a crucial geopolitical moment. Przemysław Wipler, a lawmaker from the staunchly anti-E.U. Confederation party, declared that, however brief, the meeting had secured vital pledges for Poland’s defense. The left, by contrast, saw something closer to a diplomatic cold shoulder—an event so cursory that it bordered on an afterthought. The delay, the absence of ceremony, the haste with which the meeting concluded—none of it, they argued, suggested respect for Poland’s President.
Duda’s optimism seemed groundless in light of remarks made by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who, in Brussels, delivered a message designed to unsettle: Ukraine, he suggested, should temper its expectations of reclaiming all territories seized by Russia, and NATO membership for Kyiv was unlikely. In Warsaw, speaking at a press conference, Hegseth was even more direct, warning Europeans to prepare for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops from the continent. “Now is the time to invest,” he said, “because you can’t assume America’s presence will last forever.”
Duda, ever the pragmatist, responded with measured optimism but in the same time on the third anniversary of the full-scale invasion, convened a National Security Council meeting to underscore Poland’s ongoing commitment to Ukraine’s defense. Poland, which had spent the past two years positioning itself as NATO’s eastern bulwark, now found itself staring at the possibility of a future in which its most powerful ally had lost interest in playing protector.
As presidential elections are nearing, domestic disputes are preventing the Polish political class to find unity
“If we are to find a guiding principle in these uncertain times, it is three words: truth, courage, and strength,” declared Szymon Hołownia, the Speaker of the Sejm, following a meeting of the National Security Council. The truth, he explained, is unambiguous: Vladimir Putin’s Russia is the aggressor. Courage means speaking that truth plainly and demanding that Europe commit itself to building its own defense industry. “If this is to endure and Russia is not to win, we must hear one phrase from every European leader: Article 5 is in force. These words have ensured that there has been no war in Europe for eighty years. They must be repeated today, with courage, with heads held high—just as Poland does,” Hołownia said.
The meeting was meant to be a display of national unity in the face of mounting geopolitical uncertainty. But, as is often the case in Polish politics, unity proved elusive. While President Andrzej Duda called for security to remain above partisan squabbles, he did not miss the opportunity to criticize the government. He accused Prime Minister Donald Tusk of failing to seize the chance to organize an EU – U.S. summit in Warsaw during Poland’s presidency of the Council of the European Union. He also reminded the room that it was under his leadership that the American military presence in Poland had grown, alongside an expansion of Poland’s own armed forces.
Tusk, for his part, countered with a proposal for a national consensus on security — an effort, he argued, to forge agreement between the presidency, the government, and the Sejm on key defense policies, including the potential deployment of Polish troops to Ukraine. His proposal could be interpreted in two ways: as a genuine call for unity on existential matters or as a subtle campaign maneuver for the coming presidential elections, due in May — a bid to convince voters to choose the candidate supported by Tusk’s Civic Coalition, in order to have a united front from all the centers of power, Presidency, Government, and Parliament.
The opposition seemed to believe that it was all about the elections. Mariusz Błaszczak, head of the Law and Justice (PiS) parliamentary club, took to Platform X to denounce Tusk’s appeal. “Mr. Tusk, the unity of Poles is important, but above all, we must take care of our homeland’s security. And you are failing. No major arms contracts. No 300,000-strong army. Relations with the U.S. in ruins. Fix that first, then talk about unity. You have no strategy, no plans. You are like children in the fog.”
The Poles are looking for a politician that would make them feel safe about their future again
The idea of a unified national front on security is an increasingly distant prospect in Poland, even as the threat of a fractured U.S.-European alliance looms larger. With Washington drifting toward a posture of disengagement, the specter of an American rapprochement with the Kremlin is worrying Warsaw. For Poles, whose history is a testament to the dangers of great-power indifference, the stakes are existential.
“For several years now, research has shown that Poles have an increasing need for security—to be strong enough, sovereign enough, within the European Union,” said Przemysław Sadura, head of the Department of Political Sociology at the University of Warsaw. “This is not just the thinking of right-wing voters. It is a near-universal expectation. To be independent of Russian resources, independent of the German economy, independent of the American military. These are fantasies, of course. In a globalized world, such independence does not exist. But when chaos surrounds us, the instinct to retreat, to isolate, to fortify ourselves, grows stronger.”
Sadura’s warning is clear: the Polish electorate is searching for a leader who can offer not just rhetoric, but a vision of security that feels tangible. “Trump has just shown us a disastrous future. We no longer know whether NATO will react — or whether it will act with unity. Western guarantees for Ukraine have faltered. The Polish presidential election will be won by the candidate who can craft a narrative of the future in which Poles feel safe once again.”
