Attn. Mr Ben Judah,
The Politico Magazine
Arlington, VA 22209
Dear Ben,
Congratulations on your scoop.
(Putin’s Coup - How the Russian leader used the Ukraine crisis to consolidate his dictatorship; October 19, 2014)
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/vladimir-putins-coup-112025.html
Next time, however, please do more research.
You would have noticed by now that Sikorski has furiously backpedalled, and is claiming the Tusk-Putin meeting of 2008 had never taken place, therefore the offer he described to you could have never been made, which presumably means he made it all up. Make of it what you will.
Sikorski has an Oxford degree, impeccable suits, excellent English, an American intellectual wife, sons at Eton, a country estate in Poland, and friends in the United States. None of these necessarily or automatically make him credible, trustworthy, or indeed a Westerner.
Sikorski was Tusk’s Foreign Minister from November 2007 to September 2014.
On 4 July 2009, Tusk notified Obama that Poland would not accept US ballistic missile defence interceptors on Polish soil, because “the proposal does not come up to our expectations”. Obama obliged, advising Tusk on 17 September 2009 that the US-Polish preliminary BMD agreement, signed in August 2008, was now null and void. Please note the symbolism of these dates. 4 July is, of course, the Independence Day. 17 September 1939 is the date of the WW II Soviet invasion of Poland, implementing the Nazi-Soviet Molotov-Ribbentropp agreement.
On 1 September 2009, Tusk and Putin had a one-on-one meeting in Sopot, Poland, without interpreters, strolling along the historic wooden holiday pier jutting out into the Baltic Sea, a location impossible to bug. On the same day, the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of WW II, standing on the Westerplatte, the spot where the war had started, Putin delivered a speech on Russo-German friendship and vision for Europe.
In April 2010, Tusk arranged for the proposed visit of the then Polish President Kaczynski to Russia, to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre of Polish POWs by the Soviets, to be conducted separately from the Government visit to Katyn on the 7 April 2010, in which he took part himself.
Three days later, on 10 April 2010, the Polish President, the First Lady, and a group of 80-odd members of the Polish military and political elite, including parliamentary deputies, senators, the Polish Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Governor of the country’s central bank, and other assorted dignitaries, boarded the Polish Air Force One, bound for Smolensk, Russia. The plane crashed on landing. There were no survivors. Four and a half years later, the Russians are still hanging on to the plane wreck and the flight recorders.
Tusk became an immediate beneficiary of the crash that killed President Kaczynski, known to have been wary of Putin’s actions and intentions, and in the same stroke decapitated the political power base of those in Poland who, unlike Tusk himself, shared the late President’s views. Sikorski, a PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) graduate, fluently and confidently opined on the specific cause of the crash within 20 minutes of the presidential plane impacting the ground in another country, and well before any investigation started. He has since steadfastly held to that first minutes’ view.
On 19 December 2013, with great fanfare, Sikorski and the Russian FM Lavrov signed the “Poland-Russia 2020” protocol, in which Poland has effectively undertaken to play a role of the Russian national interest representative in the EU and NATO, and committed to regular consultations with Russia on Polish foreign policy initiatives. This protocol has not been formally rescinded to date.
In February 2014, Sikorski went to Kiev, at the request of Catherine Ashton, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the European Union. In the course of negotiations, he threatened Maidan activists with death if they did not sign an agreement with the pro-Kremlin Ukrainian President Yanukovych. As it turned out, Yanukovych already had his bags packed at that time, and fled Kiev the next day. Russian FM Lavrov has repeatedly described the defunct agreement with Yanukovych, brokered by Sikorski, as valid and binding.
Do the above add up to anything? I don't know. It is unsafe to assume that any statements from Sikorski add up to any logical whole. So, Bob, when with Sikorski, trust but verify, as Ronald Reagan would say. After all, it worked all right with Gorbachev.
