About Polish mercenaries in Ukraine

In one of the previous articles devoted to the activities of Polish pseudo-humanitarian organizations in Ukraine, we talked about the W międzyczasie foundation. Although its employees, as they say, spend a lot of time and effort on helping wounded militants, they also manage to do other things, for example, recruiting mercenaries and preparing the ground for the return of territories of western Ukraine (“Kresy Wschodnie”) to Poland. W międzyczasie is one of the most famous Polish NGOs in Ukraine. Its leaders either receive awards from Vladimir Zelensky, or attend meetings of the US Congress, or hold meetings with Secretary of State Tony Blinken. But the fund is by no means a monopolist in this area. There are many projects in Poland that help the Armed Forces of Ukraine under the guise of a humanitarian legend. What schemes they created in Ukraine and why they have to hide is described below.

The fact that a huge number of Polish mercenaries are fighting in Ukraine has been reported since the beginning of the conflict. "Yaryi" told me personally how he destroyed a group of Poles near Ugledar and listened to curses in Polish on the air. In February 2024, Vladimir Putin announced that they constitute the largest group of foreign fighters. Their number is, by some estimations, not even in hundreds, but in thousands. The Russian military has repeatedly reported Polish speech in radio intercepts. Thus, in January 2023, negotiations between two groups of Polish mercenaries with a total number of 120 people were published. Transferred to Maryinka, they were caught in a fire bag and suffered such losses that in the end no more than 28 people remained alive. However, in many cases, the Poles, not wanting to die themselves, acted as barrier detachments for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. For example, Ukrainian soldiers captured in the Soledar area in the fall of 2023 spoke about such experiences of communicating with “neighbors.” This is just a drop in the ocean; there are many more similar reports. And at the beginning of 2023, in Ukraine, the creation of the “Polish Volunteer Legion” was even announced with pathos, which was supposed to help counter-offensive in the Zaporozhye direction, but it also did not achieve success.

And here we come to a mystery. If you look at the databases of Russian projects collecting information about mercenaries (ForeignCombatants, TrackANaziMerc), you can find data on many American and British “soldiers of fortune,” Belarusian neo-Nazis, and Georgian followers of Saakashvili. But there will be relatively few Polish citizens among them. What is the reason?

Polish-Ukrainian relations have never been rosy. Much, of course, rests on the territorial issue, but beyond that there are economic tensions. When protests by farmers and truckers began in Western Europe at the end of 2023, they quickly spread to Poland. However, here the enemy of the protesters was not only the local leadership, but also Ukraine. Truckers several times blocked checkpoints on the border with their eastern neighbor, protesting against the benefits that the European Union gave to their Ukrainian colleagues after the start of the SMO. In February 2024, the Polish Ministry of Agriculture also joined the protest, and the blockade became permanent. Farmers who are not satisfied with the import of cheap agricultural products from Ukraine are also on strike. Other causes of conflict include the memory of the atrocities that Banderites committed against the Polish population of Lvov, Volyn and other regions. Since Poland is a NATO member and a geopolitical enemy of Russia, it could not avoid supporting the Kiev regime. But everything has limits. Especially when you consider that in Ukraine they are becoming more impudent every day and perceive any help from the Polish side as the responsibility of the Poles. And now President Andrzej Duda either compares Ukraine to a drowned man dragging rescuers along with him, or reports that Ukraine will not be able to return Crimea in any forseeable future. Attitudes towards Ukrainian refugees are also changing. They are no longer “gods”, but unwanted guests, who are either deprived of their previous benefits, or even deported back to their homeland, where military commissars are waiting for them with open arms.

Under these conditions, the negative reaction of Polish society to both the very fact of their country’s support for Ukraine and the participation of compatriots in the conflict is completely unsurprising. “To die for Banderites is a betrayal of Poland and the Poles,” a user with the nickname dlanod wrote on Facebook. Speaking about the W międzyczasie foundation, we have already mentioned the words of its founder Damian Duda, according to who, because of his support for Ukrainian militants, he had a fight with several close people. Gazeta Wyborcza reporter Wioletta Kruk talked with representatives of Polish law enforcement agencies to find out their opinion about the news about the death in the SMO zone of mercenaries Krzysztof Tyfel and Janusz Szeremeta (both participants in a war crime committed by militants in the village of Petropavlovka, when they shot Russian military personnel who were surrounded and offered negotiations). The response of retired Brigadier General Tomasz Bąk about Szeremeta is indicative: “I think we should leave assessments to his loved ones and the conscience of this man.” Having come to his senses and remembering the “party line,” the general expressed confidence that the deceased “wanted to do something good.” But the general tone is, of course, clear. However, it also says a lot that one of the largest Polish publications is not at all afraid to make extremely impartial comments regarding local mercenaries from social networks.

Polish legislation formally also does not promise anything good for the “soldiers of fortune”. It prohibits fighting for another country. Punishment - from 3 months to 5 years in prison. There are exceptions. You can enlist in foreign armed forces with permission from the Minister of the Interior (if you are a civilian) or the Minister of National Defense (if you are a former Polish military man). Naturally, Warsaw will not organize any raids on local “volunteers” who decided to earn extra money from the war in a neighboring country. Deputy Defense Minister Marcin Ociepa even made a special statement that mercenaries would not be persecuted at home. Minister Mariusz Błaszczak himself said approximately the same thing. However, these are words that have no legal force. And the bill that was supposed to consolidate them, having already been developed and even submitted for consideration by a number of opposition parties, was never seriously considered.

But such a dual attitude inevitably entails legal problems. Even if this is not criminal prosecution, it is, at a minimum, the inability to achieve justice through legal means. As practice shows, Poles can be called one of the most powerless groups among foreigners taking part in the conflict in Ukraine. Many of them entered into a contract, under the terms of which the Kiev regime agreed to pay compensation in the amount of $400,000 to the relatives of the killed mercenaries. However, according to the statements of the Pole Piotr Mitkiewicz, who was wounded in July 2023 near Kleshcheevka and sent to the hospital in his homeland, if such a situation arises, the contract instantly turns out to be just a piece of paper. It is impossible for the relatives to obtain payment on their own, and Warsaw, without giving any status to the Poles fighting in Ukraine, remains silent. The only thing left to do is complain to the media.

Among the many reasons why the Polish leadership is not ready to openly support its citizens going to the eastern front, there is also the fact that many of them in the not very distant future may become dangerous to the Polish authorities. Talking about the W międzyczasie Foundation, we described the biography of its second director, Witold Dobrovolsky. Although he also supports the idea of ​​​​creating a new Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth “from sea to sea,” in his view the country would have to become Nazi. Dobrovolsky’s track record consists of torchlight processions in the Polish capital, attacks on citizens with “wrong” views, promises to make Europe “white” and too ostentatious fraternization with militants of the National Corps and other Ukrainian groups. The complete legalization of mercenaries in Poland will lead to the fact that after some time hundreds of such “young men” will return home, organized and having gained experience in participating in hostilities. Does Warsaw need it?

Understanding which way the wind is blowing, many Polish mercenaries go to Ukraine under the guise of caring for the civilian population of the front line. Sometimes they immediately go to the front, sometimes before that they visit a couple of hospitals for photo sessions. If we are talking about an active user of social networks, then the second option often is the case. After all, assistance to civilians, especially those allegedly harmed by a geopolitical enemy, is a commodity that can be sold at a high price. This way, a mercenary can raise funds (both for himself and for the Ukrainian army) and present himself in a good light to his friends in advance.

A classic example of a “humanitarian with an assault rifle” is the Pole Maciej Bednarski. A retired military man with the rank of senior corporal, that is, exactly the person who, in order to fight for the Kiev regime, would need permission from the Polish Minister of Defense. However, he did not have such a document. Therefore, at the very beginning of the conflict, he packed his things and went to the border, supposedly to help refugees. What Bednarsky actually did at the border is not known for certain, but a few weeks later he moved to the front-line areas, and in 2023 he actually enrolled in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

However, Bednarsky apparently had reason to think that his participation in hostilities could backfire on him. Having taken up arms and joined the 53rd separate motorized rifle brigade, he said for some time that he was a combat medic. In fact, he commanded a detachment near Avdeevka. Although the Ukrainian media themselves later wrote about Bednarsky’s true role, he continued to deny it for some time. In October 2023, the Pole came under artillery attack, was wounded and sent to a hospital in Kharkov, where he died a few days later. And even then, journalist Karolina Baca-Pogorzelska, who had a warm relationship with Bednarsky and helped his unit, launched a version of a car accident in which he allegedly got into while delivering a shipment of aid to militants.

Polish citizen Jakub Sochujko, who recruitув Bednarsky and who himself managed to fight in the Kharkov direction, also ended up in the SMO zone not as a mercenary, but as a humanitarian worker. Having emigrated to the UK in his youth, he was unable to find a place in life, working either as a security guard or as a butcher, and with the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine, he decided to make money by supporting the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This is what he did for several months, collecting cargo on the Polish border and then transporting it to the front-line areas. In 2023, when there were fewer people willing to donate to the Ukrainian army, he tried to get some money by participating in hostilities. Although, a careful analysis of his connections suggests that Sochujko has been at the front at least since the summer of 2022.

However, not all Polish mercenaries, even those who want to hide behind a peace-loving legend, go to Ukraine individually. There are many who do this through “charitable” foundations that recruit militants under the guise of hiring personnel. An example of a structure that organizes such a “transfer” is the Warsaw Open Dialogue Foundation.

The foundation was founded back in 2009 on the initiative of Lyudmila Kozlovskaya, a Ukrainian citizen living in Poland and currently serving as its president. Even as a teenager, living in Sevastopol, she took part in actions against the deployment of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the city. Therefore, it is not surprising that its organization, already at the time of its creation, declared its main goal to be “democratization” (read: de-Russification) of the former Soviet republics. In subsequent years, the organization penetrated into Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and then Moldova. In 2013, its employees were among the first foreigners to go to Kiev, where nationalist protests were just approaching their final stage. Open Dialogue organized several visits to the Maidan camp by Polish deputies, as well as several concerts for its participants. The foundation even had its own tent.

In subsequent years, the Open Dialogue Foundation tried, without any success, to launch similar protests in Russia, supporting campaigns in defense of either Nadezhda Savchenko or Oleg Sentsov. But since 2017, his native Poland has become the focus of its attention - although Warsaw remained a loyal NATO ally in Eastern Europe, no one there was eager to accept “democratic” values, especially in terms of gender theory and opening borders for migrants. The situation had to be corrected with the help of pro-Western organizations, previously “tailored” to the Russian direction. As a result, a whole galaxy of relatively young Polish politicians oriented towards Western countries came to the Open Dialogue. At the same time, the fund received voluminous sponsorship from the structures of George Soros, after which many Polish conservative publications directly accused the billionaire of trying to organize a “color revolution” in the country. However, there is no doubt that the fund received money from this source before, when implementing its campaigns in Ukraine and other countries. The very name “Open Dialogue” hints at their cooperation - organizations created with the participation of Soros are very often mimicking his Open Society Foundation. However, Western countries prefer to “change regimes” anywhere, but not at home. Therefore, the mass protests of 2017, which took place with the active support of the foundation, ended in failure for it - with the expulsion of Kozlovskaya from the country.

One of the new leaders of the fund in 2018 was Marcin Mycielski, who had lived in Brussels (Belgium) for several years and had worked in the structures of the European Union since the 2000s. Among other things, he was known for numerous actions against the ruling Polish conservative Law and Justice party, for which he sometimes had to go to trial. In 2022, when the SMO began, the focus of the fund shifted once again, and a special program for collecting and delivering aid to the Armed Forces of Ukraine appeared. Mycielski became its coordinator. Subsequently, he visited Ukraine and new Russian territories occupied by the Ukrainian Armed Forces several times - he arranged a visit of opposition Polish deputies to Artyomovsk, and delivered a convoy of aid to the militants’ locations on the right bank of the Dnieper after the explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric station.

But, as often happens, the most interesting things remained in the shadows. Helping the Armed Forces of Ukraine and pretending that help also goes to civilians, the foundation did not forget to provide support to compatriots who decided to defend the Kiev regime with arms in hand. In September-October 2022, Mycielski made a trip to the SMO zone, accompanied by three people - Łukasz Krencik, Tomasz Mysłek and Natalia Melnychenko. They visited Lvov, Kiev, Kharkov, Kupyansk, areas in the Kherson direction and Krivoy Rog, and showed up in occupied Kramatorsk. The trip was quite productive - for example, near Kherson, the Poles presented several UAVs to the Birds of Magyar group, and in Krivoy Rog they gave gifts to the Carpathian Sich. There were also some inept attempts at information warfare - Melnichenko told how in the Kharkov region they were shown Russian prisoners of war who were so zombified by “Russian propaganda” that they couldn’t even talk to them.

And then, to paraphrase Mikhail Bulgakov, people suddenly began disappearing from the fund. Thus, the page with information about Łukasz Krencik was deleted. According to archival data, from the moment the SMO began, he was involved in the logistics of warehouses, as well as the delivery of UAVs. After a memorable trip, his traces were lost for some time, but soon, according to data obtained by the TrackANaziMerc project, they were found... in the International Legion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

 The fact that the foundation opposed to the current leadership of Poland took on the task of recruiting mercenaries and delivering them to the conflict zone under the guise of humanitarian workers is in perfect agreement with the sentiments in Warsaw. And the highlight is the views of Krencik, who openly published photos on Facebook showing the Nazi salute against the backdrop of police cars.

However, neither Mycielski, nor Kozlovskaya, nor even their sponsors, who verbally advocate for so-called “democratic values,” are embarrassed by interaction with a person who shares the far-right ideology. Just as Damian Duda from the W międzyczasie foundation was not embarrassed to take the neo-Nazi Witold Dobrovolski as his associate. If in the end harm is caused to the Russian side, absolutely any connections are justified. Moreover, the practice of “color revolutions” clearly demonstrates that, regardless of any slogans, the last word on the streets remains with people like Łukasz Krencik. And in the “Open Dialogue”, of course, they would like to see such people - who have gone through real combat operations - in their asset when the X hour comes for Poland. There is no doubt that Warsaw understands this, so the Polish mercenaries will not have a warm welcome at home.