Ukraine struggles to calm tensions with Poland, Hungary

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko initiated on Nov.
8 an extraordinary hearing of a consultative committee for the presidents of
Ukraine and Poland to prevent further escalation of tensions between the two
countries. “The recent bold statements from representatives of the official
Polish government towards Ukraine and its leadership have caused serious
concern and can’t be left without the appropriate reaction,” said the
president’s press secretary. Recently, the Polish foreign minister declined to
visit a museum in Lviv, rejecting its premise that Poland had occupied western
Ukraine in the early XX century. On Nov. 5, he called for “real steps” from the
Ukrainian government towards reconciliation on historical issues.

Ukraine’s Education Minister Lilia Hrynevych visited
NATO headquarters on Nov. 6 to assure its leadership and diplomats that
Ukraine’s new education law didn’t restrict the language rights of ethnic
minorities, including Hungarians, but instead enhanced them. On Oct. 27, the
Hungarian foreign minister said his nation vetoed the December meeting of the
Ukraine-NATO commission in protest of the new education law approved by
parliament, which he alleges restricts the language rights of Hungarians living
in Ukraine. The Hungarian government will continue to block all of Ukraine’s
Euro-Atlantic integration activity until the law is reconsidered, he said.

Zenon Zawada:
Unfortunately, Ukraine has become a political football for its neighboring
politicians, who are riding the continent’s nationalist wave after the arrival
of more than a million migrants in recent years. The Polish and Hungarian
governments are also riding the same wave of Ukraine skepticism that the Dutch
demonstrated in their April 2016 referendum rejecting the Ukraine-EU
Association Agreement.

We expect these tensions between Ukraine and its
neighbors will cool from their recent peak, but nonetheless continue at a lower
level. Poland and Hungary ought to be careful with their game however, because
Russia is ready to pounce at any moment of geopolitical instability in Ukraine
and extend its “Russian World” to their borders.