Helena Luczywo at PostGlobal

Helena Luczywo

Warsaw, Poland

Helena Luczywo is the Managing Editor of Gazeta Wyborcza (Electoral Gazette), the first independent daily of a communist country founded in 1989 and now boasting the largest national daily readership in Poland. Close.

Helena Luczywo

Warsaw, Poland

Helena Luczywo is the Managing Editor of Gazeta Wyborcza (Electoral Gazette), the first independent daily of a communist country founded in 1989 and now boasting the largest national daily readership in Poland. more »

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A Dangerous Neighbor Indeed

Poland is always suspected of being anti-Russian because of our long history of subjugation. Yet the democratic opposition pf the 70's and 80's in Poland tried hard to make friends with Russian dissidents. They sought to act together and published officially banned Russian literature underground. After the transition of 1989, we continued to be friends with Russian democrats, and with Russia.

Having said this, in answer to your question: Yes, we should worry. Russia is no longer a liberal democracy. There is hardly any opposition and hardly any freedom of expression. Now NGOs are likely to be destroyed by Putin. Russia is using anti-Western rhetoric, not dissimilar to what we remember from the Cold War period. He is creating a national ideology to unite its people around the traditional rivalry.

Now, you can say that Russia's present blasting of the U.S. and NATO is not much different from the threats we heard before the NATO enlargement in the 90's, when Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary were about to become members. But Russia is now a nondemocratic country, a country flirting with some pretty dangerous states, a country trying to re-establish itself as a world superpower. And they have money to finance this ambition.

Superpowers are always dangerous. They are even more dangerous when they are nondemocratic. And they are most dangerous when they are your neighbours.

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