Poland–Russia relations have a long and often turbulent history, dating to the late Middle Ages. Over the centuries, there have been several wars between Poland and Russia, with Poland once occupying Moscow during the Commonwealth era, and later Russia occupying Poland in the 18th and 20th centuries, leading to strained relations and multiple Polish attempts at re-acquiring independence. Polish–Russian relations entered a new phase following the fall of communism in 1989, with relations warming under Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev and later Russian president Boris Yeltsin. Relations began worsening considerably as a result of the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, and later the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and especially the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Relations between the Polish and Russian governments and their citizens have become increasingly hostile since the Russo-Ukrainian War. According to a 2022 poll, only 2% of Poles viewed Russia positively, the lowest number in the world among countries polled. Poland, a member of the European Union and NATO, sanctioned Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.
History Poland and Kievan Rus
One of the earliest known events in Rus'-Polish history dates back to 981, when the Grand Prince of Kiev, Vladimir Svyatoslavich, seized the Cherven Cities from the Duchy of Poland. The relationship between two by that time was mostly close and cordial, as there had been no serious wars between both.
In 966, Poland accepted Christianity from Rome while Kievan Rus'—the ancestor of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus—was Christianized by Constantinople. In 1054, the internal Christian divide formally split the Church into the Catholic and Orthodox branches separating the Poles from the Eastern Slavs.
In 1018, Svyatopolk the Cursed who fled from Kiev turned for help to the Polish king Bolesław I the Brave, who defeated Yaroslav the Wise in the Battle of the River Bug. During the Kiev campaign, Boleslaw was crowned with the capture of the city, but Boleslaw, instead of transferring power to Svyatopolk, began to rule in the city himself. In response, the people of Kiev raised an uprising, as a result of which they began to “beat the Poles”. Boleslaw fled with the treasury, and also took Yaroslav the Wise's sisters with him. The Cherven cities, were restored to Poland until conquered again by Yaroslav the Wise and his brother Mstislav the Brave in 1030–1031.
A similar story took place in 1069, when the Grand Duke Izyaslav Yaroslavich ran to Poland to his nephew Bolesław II the Brave, and he, having made a trip to Kiev, intervened in the Rus' dynastic dispute in favor of Izyaslav. According to legend, a relic sword named Szczerbiec, which was used during the coronations of Polish kings, was notched when Boleslaw I or Boleslaw II struck the Golden Gate in Kiev. The first option cannot be true due to the fact that the Golden Gate was built in the 1030s, the second is also not confirmed by the results of carbon dating of the sword, which, apparently, was created not earlier than the second half of the 12th century.
At the same time, Kievan Rus' and Poland also knew long periods of peaceful coexistence (for example, during the life of Vladimir after 981) and military alliances. Thus, the Polish king, Kazimierz I, concluded an alliance with Yaroslav the Wise in 1042, marrying the first to the sister of the Grand Duke Maria Dobroneg. In 1074, according to the chronicle, peace with Boleslaw II was signed in Suteisk by the Smolensk prince Vladimir Vsevolodovich Monomakh, and in 1076 he together with the Volyn prince Oleg Svyatoslavich came to the aid of the Poles in a military campaign against the Czechs. The Grand Prince of Kiev, Svyatopolk Izyaslavich, made peace with the Polish king, Bolesław III Wrymouth, who in 1103 married the daughter of Svyatopolk Sbyslav; when in Poland a struggle broke out between Boleslaw III and his brother Zbigniew, the Rus' troops came to the aid of the king and forced Zbigniew to recognize his power.
Like the principalities that arose from the disintegration of Kievan Rus', Poland experienced several Mongol invasions in the 13th century, however, despite the devastation, the Mongol yoke was not established, which subsequently provided Poland with an advantage in the development of trade, culture and public relations. In 1340, Vladimir Lvovich died, the last Galician heir to the Rurik dynasty, after which the Galician principality was inherited by Kazimierz III the Great and annexed to the Kingdom of Poland.
Russian Tsardom and Russian Empire
Relations between Poland and Muscovite Russia have been tense, as the increasingly desperate Grand Duchy of Lithuania involved the Kingdom of Poland into its war with Muscovy around 16th century. As Polish historian Andrzej Nowak wrote, while there were occasional contacts between Poles and Russians before that, it was the Polish union with Lithuania which brought Catholic Poland and Orthodox Russia into a real, constant relation with both states engaged in "the contest for the political, strategic and civilizational preponderance in Central and Eastern Europe".Andrzej Nowak, The Russo-Polish Historical Confrontation, Sarmatian Review, January 1997 Issue While there were occasional attempts to create an alliance between the new Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Grand Duchy of Moscow (including several attempts to elect the Muscovite tsars to the Polish throne and create the Polish–Lithuanian–Muscovite Commonwealth), they all failed. Instead, several wars occurred. Notably, during the Polish–Muscovite War (1605–18), Poland exploited Moscow's politically weakened state caused by civil war and Polish forces took Moscow – an event that would become one of the many defining moments of the future Polish–Russian relations.Peter Cheremushkin, "Russian-Polish relations: A long way from stereotype to reconciliation", Intermarium, vol. 5, no. 3. (2003), School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University Russian Tsardom, now transforming into the Russian Empire, retaliated by taking advantage of the weakening Commonwealth, taking over disputed territories and moving its borders westwards in the aftermath of the Russo-Polish War (1654–67) and later participated in the destruction of the Commonwealth during the Swedish Deluge. By the beginning of the 18th century, with the deterioration of the Commonwealth political system (Golden Liberty) into anarchy, Russians were able to intervene in internal Polish affairs at will, politically and militarily, see (Silent Sejm, War of the Polish Succession). Around the mid-18th century, the influence of ambassadors and envoys from Russia to Poland, could be compared to those of colonial viceroys and the Commonwealth was seen by Russians as a form of protectorate.
With the failure of the Bar Confederation opposing the Russian political and military influence in Poland, the First Partition took place in 1772, followed by the Second Partition, and the Third Partition of Poland. By 1795, the three partitions of Poland erased Poland from the map of Europe. As Nowak remarked, "a new justification for Russian colonialism gathered strength from the Enlightenment": occupied Poland was portrayed by the Russian authors as an anarchic, dangerous country whose Catholic and democratic ideas had to be suppressed by the 'more enlightened neighbors.' Over the next 123 years, a large part of Polish population and former territory would be subject to the rule of the Russian Empire. However, Poland was undergoing a cultural and political revival after the First Partition culminating in the Constitution of 3 May 1791 and the Kościuszko Uprising in 1794. Many Polish expatriates and volunteers sided with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France in its struggles with the very same powers (Russia, Austria and Prussia) which had partitioned Poland. After 1815, several uprisings (most notably, the November Uprising and the January Uprising) would take place, attempting to regain Polish independence and stop the Russification and similar policies, aimed at removal of any traces of former Polish rule or Polish cultural influence, however only in the aftermath of the First World War would Poland regain independence (as the Second Polish Republic).
Soviet Union
Nationalist opposition to Russian rule of Poland persisted through the 19th century, and after the fall of the Romanov dynasty in the Russian Revolution the German Empire forced Vladimir Lenin's new Bolshevik regime to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk surrendering most of Russian Poland as a German client state. Immediately after regaining independence in 1918 after the fall of Germany, Poland was faced with a war with the new Bolshevik Russia, with the Polish–Soviet War eventually ending up with a Polish victory at Warsaw, spoiling Lenin's plans of sending his Red Army west to start a worldwide Communist revolution. However, Poland failed in its war aims to annex Soviet-occupied territories such as Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania, which were incorporated into the Soviet Union as Soviet Socialist Republics.
For the next two decades, Poland was seen by the Soviet Union as an enemy and, along with Germany (under both the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich), as a "politically illegitimate" state created by the Allied Powers during World War I at the expense of Germany and Russia. During the interwar period Joseph Stalin feared a coordinated Polish-Japanese two-front invasion. Numerous residents of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic also fled across the border to Poland in protest of the First Five-Year Plan's collectivization policies and the Holodomor. The Soviet Union supported subversive activities of the Communist Party of Poland, the Communist Party of Western Belarus, and the Communist Party of Western Ukraine. Poland in turn sent secret agents across the border to encourage rebellion against Soviet rule, which caused Stalin to begin to associate Poles in the Soviet Union with nationalist dissident and terrorist groups. The NKVD murdered 111,091 Poles during the Polish Operation and deported many families to Kazakhstan. Fears of a Polish invasion and external espionage also gave justification to the general internal repression of the Great Purge in the 1930s. Nevertheless, the USSR and Poland concluded a formal Non-Aggression Pact in 1932.