Tusk and Kaczynski exchange accusations of “Russian influence”

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said he has many questions for the previous government regarding Russia’s possible influence on its representatives, while the leader of the now-opposition Law and Justice party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, said the situation is the opposite. This was reported by RMF 24.

On May 9, Donald Tusk, during a speech in the Sejm, touched upon the issue of a defector judge who sought “political asylum” in Belarus, and from there he moved on to criticize the previous government in the context of protection from Russian and Belarusian influence. 

Among other things, Tusk said that “if any defense minister had done such things as Mr. Macierewicz and his team (…) there would have been a clamor for treason” and asked what Jaroslaw Kaczynski could have been “talking about for many months with KGB agent Anatoly Vasin, which he himself admitted.” 

“Both the services and the prosecutor’s office, as well as the commission on Russian influence that we will create in accordance with the constitution, will investigate very thoroughly—without cameras, without circuses, and without media festivals—the Russian and Belarusian influence on the United Right government,” Tusk said.

Kaczynski discussed his meetings with Vasin in 1989, emphasizing that they directly linked to his responsibilities at the time, which included organizing Lech Walesa’s visit to Moscow, and that these contacts ended when he assumed government positions. He called the accusations about those events ridiculous. 

Kaczynski also said that there is “plenty of evidence to show that the Russian agenda is being consistently implemented here (…) as it was during their (Tusk’s) previous tenure in power.”

“What they are doing now, for any thinking person, is 100% proof of what I once said and condemned at the time—that under their rule, Poland is becoming a German-Russian condominium.” Kaczynski responded, “Now, perhaps more German and less Russian, but still Russian.”

In the context of political debate and in Europe as a whole, ties to Moscow or a pro-Russian stance have become toxic and can cost parties points. So politicians are trying to label their opponents. At the same time, there are smaller political forces, often right-wing radicals, that openly spread Kremlin narratives.