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The end of Russia’s war against Ukraine could lead to an explosion of international organised crime, Poland’s president has warned, saying Kyiv would need “massive support” to ensure its security.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Andrzej Duda said he was worried that when the fighting stopped crime would spill over the border from Ukraine into Poland, also affecting western Europe and the US.
He likened the situation to Russia in the early 1990s when gangsterism and gun violence spiralled among veterans of the decade-long Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
“Just recall the times when the Soviet Union collapsed and how much the organised crime rate went up in western Europe, but also in the US.”
Returning Soviet troops “had that impact on the explosion of organised crime”, Duda said, noting that casualties from Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago were much higher than those in the Afghan war.
US President Donald Trump has vowed to end Russia’s war against Ukraine within a few months but has yet to formulate a plan for doing so.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that, on the assumption that Nato membership remained out of reach for his country, western allies including the US would need to deploy at least 200,000 troops to his country after a ceasefire to deter further Russian aggression and guarantee any deal
Duda, who will stand down as president in August after completing two five-year terms, said that in the event of a peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow, it was imperative Ukraine was given support to rebuild the economy and “to keep order and security domestically”.
“Just imagine the situation when we have got thousands of people coming from the frontline coming back home. Those people who are fighting with Russia, a lot of them will demonstrate mental problems,” he said.
Many would suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, he added, and would be returning to “their villages, their towns where they will find ruined houses, ruined plants, ruined factories, no jobs and no perspectives”.
Duda, who is aligned with the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine, but has also been quick to criticise Kyiv for not respecting Poland’s historical grievances.
Tensions between Warsaw and Kyiv flared last year over the latter’s reluctance to allow the exhumation of Polish victims of second world war atrocities. Even though a preliminary deal was reached in November to facilitate exhumations, the issue still dominates the presidential campaign ahead of elections in May.
Duda also echoed Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s scepticism about sending troops to Ukraine as part of a western force deployed to enforce any peace agreement.
Poland was “permanently helping” Ukraine, by supplying weaponry but also serving as a logistics hub for military and humanitarian aid, he said. At the same time, “we are most exposed to potential Russian attacks”, he added.
“We are going to help Ukraine also in the future because it is necessary. We do not necessarily have to deploy our troops there.”
If the Trump administration were to invite states other than Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table “it would be in the interest of Ukraine to have Poland also there”, he said.
“If we look at that reborn Russian imperialism, in this particular case, Polish and Ukrainian interests are convergent.”
