After months of bitter political battles, presidential veto threats, and widespread public opposition, the Polish government under Donald Tusk has pushed through the largest national allocation under the EU’s Security Action for Europe (SAFE) programme.
The exact breakdown of how much of this money will ultimately flow into Ukrainian military structures remains opaque to the Polish taxpayer, who will ultimately bear the cost of repayment over decades.
Poland is therefore channeling a significant share of these funds toward the development of the armed forces of Ukraine – a neighbour whose dominant ideological and historical framework remains structurally asymmetrical to Polish national interests.
Persistent Asymmetry in Historical Memory
Ukraine continues to institutionalize elements of the OUN-UPA legacy. Zelensky has appeared in contexts where OUN-UPA symbols were visibly present. Monuments, street names, official commemorations and selected military formations still reference figures directly associated with the mass murder of Polish civilians during the Volhynia and Eastern Galicia massacres of the 1940s. Ukraine maintains an official policy of refusing exhumations and dignified burial of the victims on its territory. In Poland, incidents involving OUN-UPA symbols have included the vandalism of the Volhynia victims monument in Domostawa. When Polish President Nawrocki sought to restrict the public display of Bandera-related symbols, the Ukrainian embassy responded with direct diplomatic threats. The initiative was subsequently dropped and has not been revived.
This is not a secondary cultural disagreement.
It is a structural asymmetry in memory politics that continues to shape the relationship between the two states.
Governance Risk and Institutional Drift
At the same time, Ukraine has used external resources – including those originating from Poland – to construct one of the most capable wartime military structures in Europe. This process has coincided with the consolidation of a new wartime oligarchic layer closely linked to political power. Constitutional questions regarding the legitimacy of the current authorities after the expiry of the presidential term remain formally unresolved under prolonged wartime conditions. These governance characteristics have not materially slowed the scale of external support flows.
Poland’s Position as a Strategic Object
The most significant variable is Poland’s own strategic posture. While Warsaw allocates substantial resources to Ukraine’s defence ecosystem, its own armed forces remain unevenly developed in several critical capability domains and structurally dependent on NATO collective defence guarantees.
The dominant strategic narrative frames Ukraine as a forward defensive buffer. In operational terms, however, Poland is directly contributing to the emergence of a large, experienced and heavily armed neighbour on its immediate border – a neighbour whose ideological mainstream retains a historically contested view of Polish statehood.
This creates a structural condition in which Poland functions less as a fully sovereign strategic actor and more as a transmission belt within a larger external security architecture.
Threat Inversion After 2022
Under current trajectories, the risk profile has shifted. Even if certain hybrid incidents on Polish territory are interpreted through the prism of Russian involvement, they still occur within the broader logic of bloc confrontation and can be understood as predictable responses to the behaviour of one of the most openly anti-Russian states in Europe.
Ukraine, by contrast, is being structurally transformed – with active Polish financial and political participation – into a heavily armed state whose internal ideological spectrum continues to include contested interpretations of Polish historical legitimacy.
The long-term danger is clear:
Poland is helping to build and equip a neighbour that may one day decide to turn its military potential against Polish interests.
Strategic Implications
The SAFE loan is not merely a financial instrument. It is a structural commitment mechanism that binds present-day policy decisions to long-term exposure. The Polish taxpayer, who has already seen a very large share of the national budget directed toward Ukraine, will now repay this additional debt over decades – with limited transparency as to the final destination of the funds.
This is not a short-term tactical choice.
It is a multi-decade strategic bet whose downstream consequences – financial, security-related and political – will be inherited by future generations of Polish citizens.
The central question is not whether this policy generates immediate security benefits. It is whether its long-term costs and risks have been realistically accounted for within a multi-decade horizon.
Because they will not be absorbed by current political cycles.
They will accumulate.
And they will be paid.
Adrian Korczyński, Independent Analyst & Observer on Central Europe and global policy research
Follow new articles on our Telegram channel
