The editors the Wall Street Journal draw attention to an aspect of the situation with respect to Ukraine that I hadn’t considered:
Warsaw resisted accepting migrants from the 2015 refugee crisis, when well over a million asylum seekers appeared at Europe’s borders. Poland clashed with the EU over a deal that would spread arrivals, who largely came from the Middle East and Africa and had concentrated in Greece and Italy, around the Continent. But Brussels backed Warsaw last year when Belarus, trying to divide and destabilize Europe in retaliation for sanctions, created an artificial emergency by pushing migrants across EU borders.
That Poland is taking a different approach to Ukraine is no surprise. Estimates vary and are complicated by the number of seasonal workers, but more than a million Ukrainians already are in the country of 38 million. More than 300,000 hold residence permits, and most are under 40. Migration has been a boon for the Polish economy. While integration often comes with friction, and there are some differences over history, Ukrainian migration hasn’t prompted a significant backlash in Poland.
But a major Russian escalation could push millions into the EU within months. Ukrainians would more readily integrate economically and culturally than the 2015 migrants, but Central Europe would struggle by itself to cope with a dramatic increase in arrivals. Brussels should be coordinating an EU-wide plan.
Like the U. S. both Poland and Germany have had very low unemployment rates over the last several years. In other EU countries including Finland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary they’ve been higher while unemployment has been very high in Italy and Greece. Could it be that Germany and Poland are looking for more workers to ensure that wages do not rise?
I don’t think Poland is chasing low wages. Poland has faced out-migration of young men since joining the EU. When unemployment started falling, the Polish diaspora was encouraged to return and Poland began liberally issuing work permits, mainly to Ukrainians on a temporary basis. While many came from the Donbas region, Poland mostly didn’t consider them refugees, but economic migrants who would be allowed temporary residence to the extent they could find jobs. I don’t think any of this suggests is looking for a large uncontrolled migration crisis from expanding the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
Factors that should also be considered.
How much is personal animosity / familiarity (leading into contempt) driving this.
Biden is no stranger to Russians / Putin. He was ranking Senator or Chair of the Foreign Relations committee from 1997-2008, Vice-President 2008-2016, and point man for Ukraine in the Obama administration. Whether it is true or not, Russia and Putin may well consider Biden as a leading member of the “cabal” that drove many of the decisions they detest (NATO expansion, Serbian War, Georgia, Ukraine). And given Biden being point man for Ukraine policy, Putin must have a blinder full of what Biden privately did/think with regards to Russia/Ukraine.
Beyond that, the Russians know Sullivan and Blinken from their stints in the Obama administration.
Their Russian may well think they know how this administration thinks….
And before discounting personal relations as a factor; in retrospect the Bush administration probably harbored an unhealthy obsession with Saddam Hussien.