The Japan Times - Ukraine's Zelensky in Poland for first meeting with nationalist president

Nawrocki and Zelensky talked on the phone after the nationalist leader's presidential election win but it has taken four months for the pair to meet in person.

Poland has been in the firing line since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and has taken in more than a million Ukrainian refugees who fled the fighting.

According to local media, Nawrocki -- unhappy at the state of relations between the two neighbours -- turned down at least three invitations to head to Kyiv, with his entourage hinting that he was expecting Zelensky to come to Warsaw.

Ukrainian analysts said the government in Kyiv deemed the decision "contemptuous".

An EU official told AFP that "the way in which Mr Nawrocki sees relations with Ukraine is tougher than his predecessor" Andrzej Duda, a conservative who was supportive of Ukraine.

Kyiv had been waiting for Warsaw to be in contact "to really establish cooperation with the new Polish president", they added.

Nawrocki, a nationalist historian, has a long list of grievances against Kyiv: he accuses Ukraine of not seeing Poland as an equal partner -- an argument often taken up by the Polish far-right.

"We really do support Ukraine and we will continue to do so but we need to learn to function as partners and not as junior partners," he told the website wp.pl this week.

Nawrocki, a fan of US President Donald Trump, also criticises Kyiv for a lack of gratitude towards Poland's welcoming of Ukrainian refugees and its military and humanitarian support.

Poland, however, remains a key ally of Ukraine against Russian aggression and most Western aid passes through the country.

- 'New conflicts' -

History is another sensitive subject. Nawrocki accuses Ukraine of not accepting its responsibility for the massacre of some 100,000 Poles in Volhynia between 1943 and 1945, calling it a "genocide against the Polish people".

"I intend to address these questions consistently," he has said, while insisting that none of them calls into question strategic support for Ukraine.

The Polish president is similarly against the "unconditional" membership of Ukraine to the European Union and NATO, and has ruled out sending even "a single Polish soldier to Ukraine" once the conflict is over.

His position is reflective of an increase in anti-Ukrainian sentiment in Poland, which has been taken up by the far-right.

In Ukraine, opinion polls suggest that trust in the Polish president has slumped to 44 percent -- 20 points lower than during the Duda era.

Piotr Buras, an analyst with the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that for Kyiv, Poland has lost some of its importance and appears to be a less useful partner than before, notably because it no longer speaks with the same voice on the international stage.

Poland's president is looking to expand his powers and impose his views, which are often at odds with those of his Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who leads a centrist government, creating some confusion among Warsaw's partners.

"If the president does not want to help or does not know how, then at least he shouldn't get in the way," Tusk wrote on X on Monday.

Yuri Panchenko, a Ukrainian analyst, said Zelensky's trip to Warsaw will not be an "easy visit" but is important for future cooperation.

"The presidents need to gain some experience of dialogue with each other, which should, in theory, make it easier to resolve new conflicts in the future," he told AFP.

"We need to find a way to cooperate because even poor cooperation is better than none."

K.Inoue--JT