Closer than a neighbor (Ukrainian-Polish relations)

The article examines Poland’s relations with Russia and Ukraine since the collapse of the Soviet Union, as well as the efforts of Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine to create a security zone from the Baltic to the Black Sea. In the 1990s and early 21st century, Poland introduced a policy of supporting the sovereignty of countries separated from the USSR, including Ukraine (the Orange Revolution) and Georgia. Moscow has always opposed Poland’s policy of supporting independence and developing democracies in countries such as Ukraine or Georgia, and for this reason, relations between Poland and Russia have been tense and conflicting since the early 1990s. The new order in the international environment provided favourable conditions for domestic political changes but created new challenges and threats. It is connected with the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war that also threatens Poland. Therefore, the content and essence of the history of Ukrainian-Polish relations and their current state in the conditions of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine have been analyzed