When you grow up in Poland, you know when you know. Poland, a country that has endured centuries of Russian aggression — cultural, military and political. We were partitioned, occupied, Russified, and silenced. Our intellectuals were often imprisoned or executed, our histories rewritten. My family, like many others, lived under the oppressive, dishonest Soviet propaganda.

To be Polish is to know intimately and painfully that Russian power is often built on the systematic denial of human rights. And today as I watch what is happening in Ukraine, I am reminded that what we are witnessing is not a new story. It is a continuation of an old one.

Russia’s 2014 occupation of Crimea should have been a turning point. Instead, it became just another example of Western rhetoric without resolve. President Barack Obama spoke forcefully about international law and sanctity of borders — but meaningful consequences never followed. No serious deterrent was established. Russia took note.

Now, in 2024, we are watching history repeat, only worse. The current administration quietly negotiates with Putin behind closed doors — deals with the devil made in the name of “realism” or “de-escalation.” The problem is that appeasement by any name is still appeasement. And any honest Eastern European knows where this road leads.

A Legacy of State Violence

Russia’s atrocities are not historical accidents — they are patterns of statecraft. In the Soviet Union, the gulag system imprisoned millions for “counter-revolutionary” thought, including entire ethnic groups — Chechens, Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans, and Ethnic Poles, totalling over 3,000,000 people. It is also where over 20,000 Polish officers and intelligentsia were executed by the NKVD (a Soviet secret police, a forerunner of the KGB). This is just one example of how the Soviet state dealt with perceived threats: with murder, denial, and impunity.

After World War II, Poland was again carved up, this time not by Nazi Germany, but by a victorious Soviet Union that imposed new borders and a communist regime without consent. Half of Poland was handed over to Stalin. The other half became a Soviet satellite in everything but name. We lost territory, and decades of democracy and freedom.

Today, I watch with deep unease as the same playbook unfolds in Ukraine. Russia has illegally annexed Crimea and large parts of Donbas. It speaks openly of “reintegrating” historically Russian lands. The goal is not just military victory — it is partition. A fractured Ukraine that can never become fully sovereign again. Just like Poland after 1945.

The Price of Strategic Amnesia

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West rushed to welcome Russia into international order. Trade deals, G8 summits, UN security council! All these gestures were made in the name of stability. But stability built on forgetting is not peace. It is denial.

There was no truth commission for Soviet crimes. No international tribunal. No real reckoning. Instead of justice we offered investment. Instead of accountability, we accepted ambiguity. And Russia has learned the lessons well: violence would be met with statements, not sanctions; atrocity with analysis, not action.

The West’s failure to respond meaningfully to earlier aggressions — Chechnya in the 1990s, Georgia in 2008, Crimea in 2014 — has emboldened the Kremlin. The invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is not an anomaly. It is a result.

A Policy Shift is Long Overdue

If the international community wants to stop this cycle, it needs to stop treating Russian atrocities as isolated crises and start addressing them as symptoms of sustained, state-driven assault on human rights.

This means a shift in policy away from reaction and towards long-term strategy.

War crimes must be prosecuted with urgency and rigor. The International Criminal Court must aggressively analyze and not be afraid to broadcast the misdeeds committed by Russia.

The days of treating Putin as a misunderstood partner must end. Russia is not a flawed democracy; it is a totalitarian state that weaponizes repression at home and abroad. Any diplomatic engagement that ignores this reality is not pragmatism — it is complicity.

The lack of reckoning after the Cold War was a mistake. We need institutions that preserve memory, document abuses, and educate future generations about the true costs of authoritarianism. This includes supporting historical archives, transitional justice initiatives, and survivor testimony.

Memory alone is not enough; we also need structural change. The United Nations, which was founded to prevent future atrocities, now finds itself paralyzed and corrupted by the very powers it was meant to constrain. How can an institution claim to uphold human rights while allowing Russia, a country actively engaged in war crimes, to sit on the Security Council with veto power? This is not diplomacy. It is a theater. The UN needs urgent reform. At the very least, the world’s worst violators of international law should not be allowed to block accountability for their crimes.

Our own government should be ashamed for legitimizing regimes like these through backdoor deals and empty statements. Making compromises with authoritarian states while preaching values at home is not just hypocritical, it is dangerous. It teaches future tyrants that power matters more than principle, and that democratic governments will choose convenience over conviction every time.

The Personal is Political

For me, this isn’t abstract. It is my history. I carry the stories of those who lived under occupation, who endured censorship, who learned to live with fear. And I carry the obligation to speak out — especially now. History only repeats when we refuse to interrupt it. The time to interrupt is now.