 This is the post-lunch panel. We've lost one of our panelists, David Kramer, unfortunately, who deals with the entire world, has to deal with the crisis now in Egypt, I gather, this morning. So he won't be available, unfortunately. But anyway, we still have three excellent speakers. And let me set a little bit of context here. What we'd like to do now is to look at what the Poland-Russia dialogue means for the countries in between, or the common neighborhood, particularly for Belarus and Ukraine. We don't have anybody from Moldova, so it's very difficult to address. And I think it's a little bit removed from the Polish context anyway, whereas Belarus and Ukraine are immediate neighbors, very important countries to Poland. Now, I believe there is one fundamental question here that needs to be asked. Does the Warsaw-Moscow rapprochement make these states feel more secure or less secure? For example, is Russia less inclined to try and re-bundle these countries, to use an energy term, because Poland may be toning down the campaign for NATO enlargement eastwards, because the Eastern partnership seems to be, if not fading, seems to be running out of steam? Or conversely, does the Kremlin perceive Warsaw's policies as potential weakness in decision, encouraging it to exert even greater pressure on Belarus, Ukraine, and other post-Soviet countries, and undermining their sovereignty? And an additional question I think which is worth exploring, and again it's a pity David's not here, but maybe our speakers could look at this as well, is what impact, if any, does the Polish-Russian dialogue have on the democratization process in the region? One, are governments that feel secure more likely to democratize than those that feel under threat? And secondly, does taking Russia as it is, to quote the Polish Foreign Minister, mean that Poland and the EU should take Belarus, Ukraine, and others as they are, and not push the democracy agenda? Or are there different standards here at work for Russia and its near neighbors, the countries in between? Anyway, feel free to answer or not answer these questions, I just wanted to raise them. And in order of appearance we have three excellent, eminently qualified speakers. First of all, in order of appearance, Mikhail Ryabchuk, Research Fellow, Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the National Academy of Sciences in Ukraine, who can give us a Ukrainian perspective on the Warsaw-Moscow rapprochement. Second, Jaroslav Romanczuk, President of the Scientific Research Center in Belarus, who can explain how Belarus fits into this regional picture. And third, Mikhail Dolbiloff, Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of Maryland, who is well qualified to give us more of a historical perspective on the Polish-Russian thought. Is it a flash in the pan or is there real food on the plate? I thought I'd throw it in after lunch, sounds good. Okay, we'll start with Mikhail and I don't know whether you want to come up here or speak from, maybe easy to speak from the table. It's up to you, yeah? Sure, more convenient. Thank you for introduction and thank you for invitation, but also thank you for the recognition of the fact that there are some countries, there is some common neighborhood between Russia and Poland. I represent this neighborhood. Actually, this neighborhood is made up of two countries only, Ukraine and Belarus, and so we have full representation here of the entire neighborhood. Well, in my way to Washington, I happened to be a few days in Slovakia and in the hotel I picked up, just incidentally picked up a newspaper left by some Russian tourists. It was newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda. It's very interesting newspaper. Well, please, please don't laugh because it is the most, it's a newspaper which has the highest circulation in Russia, a daily newspaper. It's published daily 600 copies and two and a half million on the weekend. It's a newspaper which made very interesting evolution from Komsomol mouthpiece to yellow tabloid, but still retained their title, Komsomolskaya Pravda, and they retained all the orders on the title, orders of Lenin and on and on and on. Five orders together. Well, it draw my attention because it was related to our eventual discussion. First of all, there was very interesting article inside, under the title, myth about millions of raped Germans was invented by Hebels. It's a huge article. And another one on the cover page is a quotation from Mr. Lavrov, the head of Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, entitled, this outrageous action wouldn't remain without our response, without our retaliation. He refers to alleged machinations at the Eurovision Song Contest. Just, please, just imagine any politician in any country who would react to whatever happens and some, you know, pop song competition. But from the Russian point of view, it's very important. It's political issue and it should be retaliated. So why I made this reference? I feel that it's very difficult to carry out any dialogue with the partner like this. It's really, it's not quite clear how to do this and who is a partner actually in this dialogue. Because on one hand you have, probably you have Russian government, various governmental institutions, and probably you have also Russian society which can be also a partner. But as to the government, of course, as Dr. Sherbury aptly pointed out, it's kind of corporation which pursues personal, rather personal corporate interests rather than national interests. Somebody may call it mafia state, so of course it's very difficult to have mafia state as a partner. State which pursues zero sum game. And as you know, it's very difficult to compromise with a partner who pursues zero sum game. Of course, any politics is a sort of pragmatist pursuit, whatever it means. And any politician has to find some trade-off between bigger and lesser evil, between values and interests, between ideology and morality. So Western politics are not exceptions from this rule. They have to find this trade-off, to pursue this trade-off. But the difference is that they still, usually they do this. Usually they try to take into account some values, some moral considerations, and their opponents on the Russian side usually do not care about this. And again early in the morning we discuss this kind of pragmatism. So the state is a very difficult partner, as you see. And what about society? Society is also a very problematic partner because it's harassed, it's repressed, it's atomized. So it's also very, very difficult to cooperate. Still it doesn't matter, it doesn't mean that the dialogue is not needed, of course. First of all, the state, the government, the governmental institutions are not monolithic. Probably there are different people, at least we'd like to believe that there are very different people. And maybe cooperation with some of them would, eventually, would bring some fruits in the future. Society also does exist in Russia and also can be a partner. Moreover, I would, I dare to argue that dialogue with the state, with the government, facilitates or actually enables dialogue with society because society in Russia is castigated as foreign agents. So of course it's much easier to carry out dialogue with society if you, at the same time, carry out dialogue with the state. So what does this dialogue, Polish-Russian dialogue, mean for Ukraine? First of all, I'd like you to keep in mind that all these neighboring countries, not only Ukraine and Belarus, but also all neighbors of the European Union are challenged, as Josef Langer put it long ago. All these countries are challenged, all these countries, European Union is challenged by some other spiritual power. Muslim fundamentalism in North Africa and Middle East, and some sort of Russian orthodox, Islamic, Eurasian, Messianism, in the case of Russia. All these countries, as Josef Langer argues, are involved in a sort of cold civil war about adoption or rejection of Western values, including Russia itself, including Turkey, by the way. So obviously everything that helps to tip the balance, to change this equilibrium, to promote Western values in Ukraine in Russia is welcome. And secondly, Polish-Russian dialogue establishes the new pattern of relations with Russia that might be emulated sometimes by the Ukrainian. It's a very good example how Middle-sized country, by the virtue of its good standing, of its very successful reforms, of its authority within the EU by successful economic politics, became real and serious a partner in such a dialogue. So I cannot imagine such a dialogue in the case of Ukraine. I cannot imagine some group for difficult matters, discussing difficult matters between Ukraine and Russia, even though we have probably as many difficult issues as Poland has with Russia. But so far Ukrainian-Russian relations, of course, do not look like any sort of dialogue. It's rather relations between Robinson Crusoe and Friday. Robinson Crusoe loves Friday, as you know, but as long as Friday recognizes superiority of Robinson. So this, you know, this does not meet, of course, a complete subordination of Ukraine to Russia. And here I would definitely disagree with colleagues who predict some sort of Ukraine's, maybe not absorption, but Ukraine joining customs union. I don't think it would happen whenever. Just because, you know, just because if you have one powerful mafia state, this mafia state can be contained either by rule of law, by some legal system as it happens in Poland, and Poland is very careful about penetration of Russian economy, of Polish economy by this very dubious Russian capital, which is not just capital, it's political capital. It's politically connected capital. Or powerful mafia state can be contained by another mafia state, and this is what happens in Ukraine. This is the main reason why Ukraine would never join customs union. Even if you can imagine that it happens, it wouldn't work anyway. Probably you notice that within the past 20 years there were a lot of integration projects promoted by Russia. Maybe I can count a dozen of them, and not a single of them worked. Yesterday I read that Armenia didn't participate, didn't move recently to the meeting of Tashkent military bloc. It's a very interesting sign. I don't know what it means, but anyway. All these integration projects were allegedly accepted by Russia's neighbors. Not a single of them is strong enough to say no. Maybe Georgia tried, but you know the story. All other neighbors usually say yes, but. And this but is very important. They pretend they accept this project. They pay lip service to them, but they use all sort of sabotage to derail this project. And this is why so far neither allegedly pro-Russian Lukashenko was good for Kremlin nor Mr Voronin nor Shevarnadze, because Kremlin usually does not need friendly governments in neighborhoods. They need fully obedient governments. So they don't need Lukashenko or Voronin or Shevarnadze. They need somebody like Mr Kadyrov. But I wonder if any neighbors would agree to have such a government. So to sum up, I believe that Polish-Russian dialogue is very important, but it's important rather as a process, not as a result. So far we cannot expect any palpable results from this process. But the process per se is important. It gives us some chances, and it can be considered a result by itself. Thanks. Thanks. Next we have in your revision song contest the Belarusian representative. Yaroslav, it's all yours. Thank you. I'd like to thank the organizers for having me here and knowing that I will be speaking after lunch. I think that visual aid would facilitate post-lunch understanding. So that's why I have prepared some slides to see, to grab the difficulty or the complexity of the process. And if you have a look at the courts of arms of three countries, you see two eagles, and you see just a round or ball, right? And it's extremely difficult to find a place for an independent country with its own foreign policy within such two great powers. And in Belarus, many people perceive and authorities in Lukashenko Poland as an empire. That's why by trying to explain the hostility to what Poland, they say, well, they would like to restore its borders as of 1939. And when I was running for parliament in 2006, one of the accusations I got from the authorities was that I would like, if I had won, I would have sold Grodna to Poland. So that's kind of the propaganda the authorities use. But just looking at the courts of arms, I came up with the concept of Balarussian foreign policy or strategic policy vis-a-vis Polish-Russian integration. And this is the strategy called Kalabok. For those of you who know Russian fairytale, that's easy, right? It's a round little bun that happens to be smart and cunning, so he tries to escape from different animals, and there are many animals around. So Lukashenko is smart enough to escape the deadly embraces of all its neighbors, primarily that of Russia. So if you want to understand the behavior of Lukashenko, it's very important to understand what Balarussians are. So first of all, we are two nations within one state. These are the poll result that was conducted in February, March. And you see the very strict division between Balarussians. I'm not talking about Balarussians, this is not the opinion poll conducted by presidential administration. This is the opinion poll conducted based on IRA and Gallup methodology, so we can somehow trust it. So you see that there is a division line that comes exactly in half. Is country going in the right direction? 38% says yes, 47 wrong. Democracy or strong leader? 34 for strongly hand, 56 for democracy. By the way, the number of Balarussians who are in favor of democracy right now is higher than that in Bulgaria, Romania and Lithuania. Because of the experience that these countries had in the last 20 years. Personal freedom, then government has too much influence on your life. 61% said no. That's something that is horrible. In the country where the government controls you from cradle to grave, still 40% of the people believe that this is exact influence of the government. Then do you support privatization? In the country where 80% of the country belongs to the state, 55% of the population believe no, we don't support privatization. Another question is why, but still, if you come up with the policy of privatization, private economy, well, you would rather be in minority. But at the same time when people are asked, people are better off in free market than in the country where government plays a major role, 62% believe that free market is better. The reason is that they know the level of life in Poland, end traders, Lithuania, Ukraine and Russia. In Russia, wages are like two and a half times higher. That explains an enormous labor immigration to Russia. That also is one of the major sources of domestic demand in the country. The volume of remittances that National Bank admits is over $900 million, but we estimate that to be about $3 billion. If you add $3 billion earned by Belarusians abroad, mainly in Poland, mainly in Russia, but then Poland and other countries, that's how Belarusians adjust to the situation that the government cannot create jobs and doesn't let private sector do that. But something that is really important that is the common value ground for Europeans, Russians and Belarusians. The question about the wealth gap or income gap and whether it is a problem and should the government do that. This is where Belarusians are like Europeans. And egalitarian sentiments are getting stronger and stronger in Europe and Russia, and Belarusians are within this particular trend. But you see the number, 44.8% both in favor of changes and for status quo. So that's why Lukashenko is trying to please both sides, but of course he's a Soviet type of a collective farmer. And a very sophisticated politician that rather relies not on based on formal education but on his gut feeling. But probably gut feeling is something that works in this situation because you are in the environment that is not so linear as like in relations within the European Union. But this is something, the final question about Belarusians. Good laws or good leaders? Again, have a look at the difference. About 60% of the Belarusians believe that good leaders are more important than good laws. So if you manipulate public opinion, you can get to the point that we don't need any European democracy. We don't need something that Poland has because based on Belarusian television, Poland is absolutely subservient as a servant of NATO, EU and Lithuania, Poland, other European countries, they don't make decisions of their own. They are just manipulated by Brussels or Washington. So Belarus and Russia, we are political partners. Union state that nobody knows what it is, but it's still on paper. Economic partners, customs union, which is nothing but a bunch of holes in all sorts of regulation. Military partners, we have also the organization allegedly to challenge NATO, but that's a joke. Strong supporters of Soviet version of the World War II history and that's when Lukashenko once likewise put him to believe that whoever criticizes and tells the truth about what happened in 1939 before that and during the war is a revisionist. He's an enemy of the state because he does not respect the past, the true past. And that's why for Russians and Belarusians, it's such a sensitive issue that if you start talking about Katyn, about murders, about rapes, as my colleague said, no, no, no, you lie. They don't want to see facts. They just want to have this wave because this is something that is the only probably solid factor of building up statehood, both in Belarus and in Russia. Religious and ethnic brothers, that's obvious. Partners in anti-NATO interwest campaign. Energy partners including a nuclear power station that I will talk about a little bit later. Close ties between shadow economy agents, smugglers and gangs. Something that is underestimated but gives a lot of economic power to the customs union. It explains why so many people in both countries primarily in Russia support this idea because the way to squeeze money from the Russian budget is done in a very good way using a foreign state. So formally we are one state but using these different schemes both in goods market and in finance, they can really do many things like money laundering, like capital cash outflow from Russia primarily. So Belarus doesn't have much cash to send out of the country but it provides services to Russian companies and Lukashenko is smart in finding partners for this. Belarus and Poland. Again, this is the perception of the authorities. Cold neighborhood. That's obvious. Especially after 2010 presidential elections. Before that Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Sikorskiy, Westerwelle went in Belarus. We had very high hopes that things would be better off after elections but reality was absolutely different. Limited trade and investment cooperation, due to the investment and the economic mode inside Belarus. No military cooperation whatsoever. Agreement on cross-border movement of people is on standby. Poland would like to have that but Belarusian authorities don't want to do that because having one million people going freely to Poland would mean that many more people would see lies and the character of Belarusian economic model. Because if you start talking to ordinary Belarusians about prices, if you talk about democracy and human rights, well, okay, we have a third of the population who care. But we start talking about prices and wages. This is where you get the people. Why is it that fish and apples and the sausage in Poland are twice cheaper than in Belarus? The so-called socially oriented economy. And now even pensioners start gaping. Wow, is it really true? No, you're lying. Expensive and cumbersome visa regime, something that is really at its grace. We have a 60 euro visa. We have huge lines. And again, one of the conflicts, not conflicts but essentially scandals, is the way to get registration for getting a Polish visa in Belarus. Now, one of the versions is that Belarusian telecom monopolist Bel Tilekom somehow has his hackers to get all these slots and then sell them to the people for $200. So if you want to go to Poland and get a visa, just imagine 60 euros, and we don't get an annual or three-year visa, because a visa for three months and you pay like 250-300 bucks, which is a very effective visa curtain in our situation. And sensitive issue of the Polish minority in Belarus, which I think was inspired partially by Russia in 2005, because Union of Poles, which I'm a proud member of, was a political organization and did not get involved in politics at all. But the assumption was that as it is so big and Polish minority is about half a million people, so they may turn political and somehow be the center of resistance to the Belarusian regime, which was like a cock and bull story from the very beginning. Russia's input, and this is almost solely the achievement of Alexander Lukashenko, his unique contribution to this is that there is not a single person in the world that could get so much cash and support from Russia without getting anything in return. Absolutely unique case. He should just start teaching Howard, MIT, to know how to explain how to do that. Generous energy integration grant, because when you talk about the parallel comparisons, we have like, okay, Soviet-style country, centrally planned economy, it must be poor. When people come to Belarus, they are shocked, because it's a clean country, white streets, a lot of lights, and the problem is with even a perception of Belarus, even in Poland. I remember talking to one Polish businessman, he wanted to understand what's going on in Belarus and saying, do you guys have ATM machines in Minsk in Belarus? So do you use banks? Like, because he remembered how it was in Poland in the 80s, it was very poor and uncivilized and he believed that Belarus is a country like this. So there's definitely a lot of misunderstanding because of the way Belarus is covered in Polish media and in Russian media too. But having 25% of Belarusian GDP as an energy grant is definitely something that only an idiot would refuse to get. If the price you pay will come somewhere in like three, four, five years, or may not come at all if oil prices fall and Russia starts dealing with, well, the problem of falling apart. Almost free access to its domestic market, which neither Poland, nor European Union, nor Ukraine has. Diplomatic information support in all areas. Engagement in joint military projects, including military and arms trade. Belarus increased arms trade by 65%. There's a recent announcement from the Swedish think tank. And it's not in the Belarusian statistics. Engagement in credits, which also a very important part to sustain the Belarusian model. Free access to Russian labor market, which Ukraine, Ukraine, Moldova, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan don't have or have in a limited way. Free access to Russian educational institutions. Free access to train, to get young talents to Russia. And visa trade regime, which is also very important. What we get from Poland, again, as perceived by the authorities, tough resolutions that Polish diplomats and European parliamentarians came up with in Brussels. Then support of radical part of Belarusian opposition. Those who don't want to talk and just dictator go and no ties, introduce economic sanctions. Information support of TV channel Belsat. Attempts to bring Polish SMEs to Belarus. There are some attempts, but in this kind of environment, when authorities dictate terms of engagement, that's kind of difficult. And which is also important destination of Belarusian end traders. And these people bought goods, usually buy goods in Poland for about $700 million. So that's extremely good for eastern part of Poland, Białystok and this part of region, Lublin, because many Belarusians go there and they have VAT schemes, which are very good, and they somehow survive without any restrictions from the government. Lukashenko's input in relations with Russia. So he got so much, what he does in return. Formal support of the Kremlin integration initiatives. Just formal, because we've been in customs union with Russia since 1995. Few people know that, but formally on paper. So paper is nothing. Reality is absolutely different. Military cooperation, which again, if we have the probability of a military conflict with Poland less than 1%, well, you can do whatever you want, especially if Russia pays for that. Orthodox Church conquered that and support of conservative values, conservative as Lukashenko in the post-Soviet society in Belarus. Lukashenko can campaign just on the fact that Europeans is so decadent admitting gay marriages. He just said, many kind of uncivilized remarks, but Belarusians, they still believe that it is something of a moral degradation in Russian Orthodox Church and both Kremlin also support that. Gas transit, oil transit and refining. Opportunities to select Russian oil barons to share oil scheme with Belarus is extremely important, because if Lukashenko agrees with Igor Sechen, with Gutzeriev, with Alekperov, with some other guys on rules of engagement in all markets, and they build another oil refinery in Belarus without paying expo due to the Russian budget, so the value of the Russian oil contribution to the Belarusian model will even increase. And something that, again, Lukashenko benefits by using the bans in Russia, Kazakhstan and Poland is gambling. We have probably more casinos now than in any European party and we're getting closer to Las Vegas. That's all cash. That's all and that now he's looking for a partner to get a bank that would provide offshore services because Switzerland is no longer there. British Virgin Islands cannot do that, but Belarus is under control, stable, and if he finds somebody from either Europe or Asia or any other country, he can get like one, two trillion dollars to take care about. So if you look at the theme of so-called sanctions versus engagement, I would like to see to analyze whether there is any impact on the trade. And do you see the trade with Poland? Sure, sure, I'm not finishing. Export to Poland from Belarus about, it did not change much. It's on the same level. While the share of Polish export to European Union, as you see, is just, well, 2.1%. It's really very small. It is number five, our trading export partner, unlike Netherlands or Latvia that are huge because the basis of these flows are all products. Import from Belarus against Poland, it didn't change much for the last 10 years. So no matter what politicians do, trade is still there and there is a huge potential in understanding. So to conclude, dependence on Russian resources is increasing and that creates a lot of dangers to Lukashenko because by 2015 he either should sell a lot of valuable assets or there will be a different scenario from the Kremlin to challenge Lukashenko politically in the presidential election campaign. Potential of Polish-Belarussian relations still frozen and I think that if Lukashenko somehow is out of politics or he changes his mind, then there will be a lot of improvement in this area. Lukashenko is still playing the role of Kalabok between Russia and EU so far successfully. Belarus is trying to diversify in an orthodox way, meaning gambling, entertainment, money, financial services. Belarus still has assets to sell to make it beyond 2015 without grave political concessions to Russia. And finally, Lukashenko pursues the policy of building bridges with politically powerful billionaires rather than countries and governments, which is also very important to note. He tried to deal with Kultuk, he tried to deal with and he's quite successful in dealing with Austrian rich men, Ukrainians, Russians, and he may be on very bad terms with governments but if he has money of that kind from billionaires he doesn't care much because he believes that his reputation is not the factor. Thank you so much. Thanks Yaroslav, very informative, wide-ranging. Mikhail, you're on next. Thank you. I notice that I'm the only representative of Russia in this distinguished assembly but I'm not going to speak on or in behalf of Russia and certainly I have a Russian educational and career background but I teach it in American University for a number of years and my perspective on the subject of our meeting will be that of the other historian who is practicing research in this field but stays outside of institutionalized dialogue. I mean a dialogue institutionalized in such structures or bodies as the mentioned group for difficult issues, complex issues, maybe difficult issues, I think it's the accepted translation, difficult matter, sorry. But I'm involved in a dialogue with a number of Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian historians who study the past of this mega-region. So my focus will be on the so-called politics of history or historical politics or politics of memory between Russia and Poland. That is the subject is how the actors, political actors or actors relatively close to politics use the past, use the history, use the past for political purposes. That is manipulation of the past, uses of the past for politics, for political campaigns, for shaping identities, for shaping political attitudes and so on. And I would touch upon the similarities and differences between Russian and Polish approaches to historical politics and I will try to make a point for potential for furthering this dialogue, historians or other historians' contribution to Poland-Russia dialogue. To begin with, I would partly agree and disagree with Mikola about the existence of a dialogue, of any dialogue between Poland and Russia. I wouldn't be so pessimistic about Russia's actors or about actors on the Russian side, their capability of conducting a dialogue. I think that some dialogue is underway. But what is right is that a dialogue is often a conventional level to define or to designate some form of cooperation, some form of rapprochement. And necessarily this rapprochement is really a dialogue, especially as regards historians' analysis or historical analysis or the analysis of historical past. And sometimes it's just a series of monologues addressed very often not to the opposite, not to the other side of presumed dialogue, but to the domestic constituencies to be in their support, to be in their favor, and so on and so forth. So really one can detect some very positive signs in how Polish-Russian relations of the recent years affected the historical memory, so to say. The discussion of shared past, the discussion of controversial issues about shared past. And just getting back to the period of time, 10 years ago, for example, we see how much passion, how much irrational passion was there in Polish-Russian relations, and one can point to extreme forms, extreme patterns of politics of memory. On the Russian side, we can recall such notorious an enterprise as the establishment of the commission to fight to quote its name, to commission to fight falsifications, historical falsifications to the detriment of Russia's state interests. A bit earlier, several years earlier, the Putin government established a very controversial new holiday, the Day of National Unity, established in 2005. Obviously designed to recall, to remind controversial issues in the Polish-Russian past, namely, the Polish, the Zheczpospolita participation in the Russia's, in the Moscow's, rather, times of Trebs as early as the beginning of the 17th century. So it's obvious that very, very distant past was instrumentalized to produce immediate political results. On the Polish side, one could point to a number of manipulations of historical past by the famous Institute of National Memory, a whole institution, a multifunctional institution, that whose activity, whose functioning stirred up also much controversy in the Polish society. So what happened next? What is continuing to happen, to go now? One can consciously, with many reservations, point to, really, to a kind of rapprochement between Polish and Russian governments and Polish and Russian historians. And we see that the events of the, of the events of the 2009-2010 relatively positively affected the discussion of the Katina massacre. And it's, this process began before the Smolensk tragedy of 2010, and it was tragically, it was facilitated by the Smolensk tragedy, and the Russian authorities sped up the process of passing the volumes of the Katina affair to the Polish part after that. Also, there were several meaningful gestures on the Russian side, highly ritualistic, so to say, not very, from some perspective, just hollow, just paying lip service, but nevertheless meaningful. One of them was the famous Putin's Westerplatte speech of 2009 at the meeting to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the, sorry, the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the Second World War in September 2009. And in that speech, Putin very reluctantly, not directly, but a drop in mention of the Russian invasion in Poland in 1939. So that, I mean, that meant something against the background of the previous rhetoric, previous militant and xenophobic rhetoric. That sounded, that came to sound like a concession. So we also, so all this served to mitigate a little the state of things in Polish-Russian relations. But the question is, how, in what way did historians on both sides benefit from it? The dialogue between historians that benefited from this rapprochement was conducted by, so to say, high-placed figures in respect of historical communities of each country. So the level of discussion was very closely related to government politics, so to say. And this dialogue was sponsored, was encouraged, was supported by governments of both sides. And just, I'm not sure that this is the only form of dialogue that historians are allowed to dream of, so to say. And how did it, so this form of dialogue that is strongly government supported, just look at the, for example, look at the publications, very impressive, very available publications of the group for difficult issues, for difficult matters. This public publications features members of this committee, converse meet with presidents, with prime ministers of both countries. That is, the government, the state's presence, the states in both states' involvement in this dialogue is very, very palpable. And it can, how it can, how can it impact, how can it affect, so to say, broader historical communities, broader historical developments. I would point to just to one possible consequence of the Polish-Russian rapprochement and evictivization of historical dialogue in 2010. Being a historian, being committed to empirical evidence, I cannot prove it convincingly, but my feeling is that Polish-Russian rapprochement affected politics of memory in Ukraine in 2010. I'm just sorry for encroaching the domain of Mikola, but this is just an observation. Viktor Yanukovych's coming to power almost coincided with the Smolensk tragedy and following thaw in Polish-Russian relations, and one can surmise that Yanukovych, in his initial gestures toward Russia, tried to imitate this spirit of detente. I mean, so he obviously and he immediately mitigated several aspects, he immediately played down several aspects of the previous President, Viktor Yushchenko, politics of memory, especially the issue of Holodomor. The whole construction of the memories about Holodomor was not cancelled, was not sent to oblivion. It still remains a part of, so to say, officially sponsored memories about Ukraine and part of the historical narrative of the nation. However, Yanukovych was quick to play down the genocidal aspect of previous Yushchenko's campaign, not making direct announcements, not recognizing it directly, so he withdrew from making strong points about the Holodomor as a genocide against the Ukrainian nation. Obviously, that was part of general thought, so to say, of historical politics in the region, and that was more particularly a gesture of reconciliation toward the Russian government and Russian government-sponsored historians. Immediately after that, then Russian President Medvedev visited in a benevolent gesture the Holodomor Memorial in Kiev, doing precisely what he refused to do, had refused to do a couple of years before just rejecting Yushchenko's invitation. And I'm not quite sure that this kind of thought really can fully benefit multileveled and multifaceted historical dialogue. As a consequence, just talking about common neighbors, for example, my feeling is that these politics of reconciliation or other politics of playing down historical controversies resulted, for example, in hindering, in the Ukrainian part, in hindering a critical number of Ukrainian historians from confronting the issue of the Valin massacre, yet another burning issue this time in the Polish-Ukrainian relations in the Polish-Ukrainian historical dialogue. And because Yanukovych's reversal, Yanukovych's revision of previous politics of memory obviously created a feeling of threat to the Ukrainian nationhood, to the Ukrainian national consciousness, and historians, really historians, feel vulnerable in their efforts to build up a strong national narrative. And such a complicated issue, such a burning issue as the Valin massacre of 1943 is one of the issues that cannot be discussed fruitfully in this climate, very strongly affected by the government dialogue. And just maybe I will take advantage maybe from possible questions to expand on this, but my final point would be about, very briefly, about Polish, about what has not been but maybe still could be borrowed from Polish experience, both by Russia and, for example, and Ukraine as Poland and Russia's common neighbor. I mean that for all passions, for all maybe for all vitriol of debates, public debates in Poland about historical issues, Polish historians were able to develop meaningful public discussions, meaningful public debates and come up with a kind of consensus. And the very eloquent example here is the case of Yudbabne, the first brought up by the Polish-American historian Jan Gross, the case of mass murder of Jews in a small town in eastern Poland in 1941. A case that made the Polish society at large face the issue of collective responsibility and guilt for the participation in the Holocaust. So debates were enormously passionate and they, in fact, they are going on, although they pick fell on the 2002-2005, and in fact some meaningful segment, a considerable segment of Polish historian profession came up with a new sense of responsibility for national, for the crimes, for the historical crimes for which the nation should fail responsibility. Nothing comparable, in my view, to my knowledge, nothing comparable happened in Russia and Ukraine. Just, let me call it mentioned, this notorious issue of the atrocities committed by the Soviet army against civilians in Germany and Eastern Europe in 1945. Another possible issue to serve as a trigger to discuss the collective responsibility for the nation's crime could be the issue of collaborations of Soviet citizens with the Nazi in the present-day territory of the Russian Federation, but nothing comparable with the Yudbabne case just can be seen, can be detected in Russia. And the case of Ukraine, I'm afraid here, is similar to Russia rather than Poland. Also, the Valin massacre is a muted issue in present-day politics of memory in Ukraine. The issue of the Ukrainian insurgent army in the Holocaust that is hotly debated now in the historical professions also seemed to be far, just to be very, very remote from the core of public debate in Ukraine. And here is the, I think that here is the, here is the perspective for, here is prospects for furthering a dialogue between historians and that's really a point where the Ukrainian and Russian historians could borrow more boldly and more fruitfully from Polish grappling with the really difficult issues of the past. Thank you, Miha. I had to interrupt you because this was very interesting. Thank you very much. Okay, questions now. I'm going to jump in with the first one. From what I gather, maybe establishing a Belarusian Russian and a Ukrainian Russian group similar to the Polish Russian would be very difficult unless we call it the group for currently impossible matters. But I have a question, both of you raised, particularly in the case of Belarus, it sounds as though you would need an internal dialogue, Belarusian, Belarusian and Ukrainian-Ukrainian dialogue on difficult matters. How far is this, is anybody thinking about this? Is anybody moving this in a similar way? I don't mean sort of both sides shouting at each other, but sitting down actually discussing things seriously. In Belarus, there is no dialogue and the situation is that the opposition probably in the worst shape ever. Lukashenko has so much resources from Russia that he doesn't care even to have a dialogue with IMF so much. Things may change in the second half of the year because he is facing a difficult loan problem. He has to pay a lot of cash and the macroeconomic policy inside the country is far from being sane. But this Polish-Russian dialogue on the platform, I think the mere existence of such an institution is a very positive factor because that destroys not just much but sends a very good signal to people inside Belarus and a very disturbing signal for Lukashenko. But if Poland and Russia agrees on something and start talking to each other instead of blaming each other for so many things, then it will be very difficult for him to play this game of, okay, I'm in favor of Russia, I'm against Poland, I'm in favor of Poland-EU, I'm not with Russia. So the mere existence, I really hail this kind of dialogue attempt because really we're very far from the culture of dialogue itself and in 1991-19, let me remind you, we are much closer when Ambassador Wieg, that time I was the head and Ambassador Kozak, they managed somehow to set up a dialogue. Then that was destroyed. But I think that the only kind of realistic factor that could push us to the dialogue is the crisis. First of all, I not quite agree with what he told about difficult issues like Volin or UPA completely muted. Yes, of course they are muted but not completely. I mean that we have, luckily enough, we have pretty good dialogue between Ukrainian and Polish societies at least between intellectuals. We have, we see good partners in Poland and there are Polish partners in Ukraine for such a dialogue. And as you remember, there was pretty successful reconciliation gestures in 2002-2003, in Volinia, in Lviv, this Sventosz Orlet military cemetery. And now we are also preparing in July, two weeks we are preparing also a number of actions commemorating Volinia massacre. So it's not that bad. What is really bad is that these issues like UPA are hijacked in Ukraine by Soviet file, largely Ukraineophobic political forces and they try to employ this issue to discredit all things Ukrainian. That's a problem which really complicates the entire issue. It's really, I feel it, I feel this very powerful challenge how to say the truth but at the same time not to identify yourself with this very ugly people like Kulesnichenko and all these guys who are really very speculative, very demagogic and very dirty actually. They don't care about truth, they just care about discrediting everything. That's really a very special issue. Regarding Ukrainian-Ukrainian dialogue it's really very important issue. I fully agree that we need it maybe even more than Ukrainian-Russian or whatever. It's still, I would say it's only in embryonic form today. There are some attempts but not powerful enough. Thanks, Michal. Let's open up now to questions, comments. James, you already have been introduced as speaker. So a question, should I say? So please go ahead. Thanks very much and my compliments, congratulations to the panel. I was hoping I could get the three of you to focus on the values issues that were raised in the last panel by putting it in the following way. Yanukovych, like all his predecessors in Ukraine has publicly identified Ukraine's future with Europe and the European system and therefore in that context the Europe's involvement in discussion about values and internal matters has an essential legitimacy in Ukraine and no one can quarrel with it. But in the case of Russia you are looking not only at elites but a large part of society who define their values and their policy in opposition to those that are advanced by Brussels. And the question then I think has to be who in Russia benefits from conducting a public argument over internal matters in Russia about this question. And just to put this in very practical terms what has the greater influence in Russia today in a positive sense? The Magnitsky Act or the EU's third energy package which is an example of upholding our values and practices and our own jurisdiction about the way the business is conducted. So I will just leave it there but I'd be grateful if you could engage with that issue. Thanks. Thank you very much. In fact my intention is to explain because it seems to me that misunderstanding because I was impressed by comments made by Mikhail Dolbilov but it seems to me that he does not understand that the group on difficult matters is not a group of historians. There are some historians but the problem was not to find something new to make a kind of the research, not at all because we have had different interpretations of history in Poland and in Russia and we will have this difference also in the future because all the nations they have the right to their own national memories. The problem is only how to discuss to introduce the language between intellectuals, historians, sociologists etc. Just to discuss the real problems not something what is invented by politicians and therefore I raised that question that the very fundamental point of departure was the politicized dialogue. In other words to discuss the real facts the truth. The truth is not detrimental it could be uncomfortable it is very often uncomfortable but it has to be accepted that as a point of departure it should not be the victim of the dialogue it should not be the victim of reconciliation. Reconciliation starts by recognition of facts and then one can interpret. Having said that I would like to say that the aim of the dialogue which was initiated in 2008 between Poland and Russia was with an intention to open the public debate and the public debate which should be based on truth and facts with an intention that politicians will not discuss about the history. They should discuss about the problems which are oriented to the future because up to 2008 we have had the situation that ministers of foreign affairs discussed about the facts and my last point is the following just to demonstrate what I have in mind we organized in 2009 not only the meeting connected with cutting and many other issues which were sensitive for example Pact Molotov-Ribbentrop it was an international conference organized in the Royal Castle by the way originally Germans wanted to organize this in Berlin, Russians in Moscow and I told them that it would be very difficult for us to accept to discuss Pact Ribbentrop Molotov Pact in the same building where it was signed it would be better to discuss in the Royal Castle in Warsaw they accepted eventually after many meetings and discussions and my intention was to demonstrate as a kind of the small exposition to display map which was signed, the original map which was signed by Stalin and Hitler not only Ribbentrop and Molotov it was the map which was signed by Stalin personally about the frontier this map was by the way attached to the secret protocols in later on it was not in August but in September 1939 and the Russians told me that unfortunately we do not have an original it disappeared, we do not have an original and I said ok we ask them the Germans because I have seen in German Foreign Ministry and we displayed I would say this map with an intention to demonstrate what happened it was done by the way for the first time and in such a way this problem is not more a kind of the political element of the discussion because facts are now accepted, they are known that was an intention to establish and those meetings by the way when you mentioned the photographs was put in Tusk etc they were with an intention to demonstrate that those independent intellectuals who accepted to participate in the work of the group opened the way for the politicians to continue negotiations about the future about the presence this is in my view very important element just to understand what the whole group was about very short two questions, two issues I would like to follow Adam Daniel Rothfeld point and remind all of us that in September 1999 the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued an official statement with an official interpretation of free banter mode of fact it was quite a unique situation where the Ministry of Foreign Affairs engaged itself in the kind of historical debate that's one comment another comment it was inspired by Mihail Dauview in intervention I would like to hear his comment on the following thought Russian historiography is divided into two camps nowadays first first one writes for let's say global reader so it has to shape the argument in the way which may be challenged by the other authors and there is another group of Russian historians who write mostly for domestic purposes and domestic reader they can afford to ignore the facts or to shape the interpretation having in mind that nobody is able to contest it engaging this historians from the second group to the project of a joint book which is going to appear which appeared in Polish first then in Russian and is going to appear in English as well is also the method of influencing the way how they carrying debate about historical issue in Russia it serves because they have to shape the argument in completely different way they have done until now thank you let's start with you Mikhail thank you for comments very briefly just I would direct very briefly to the comments and questions from Professor Rotfeld and Professor Damsky I regret if I so if I if I sounded as if I cast doubt on the activities of the group for difficult issues certainly that was not my intention maybe just I put I just made my point to Bluntly but certainly I wasn't aware that the group was created to develop interpretations to develop to elaborate a consensus around difficult issues and certainly focus on historians and historical stuff that's because of my perspective on as a historian but another point would be that the very notion of difficult issues difficult matters how they are how they are conceptualized just very briefly give an example this current year and 2014 is the sesquicentennial anniversary of the January prize in Russian Poland of 1863 that's enormously that was an enormously important event for both Polish and Russian history both Polish and Russian as much important for Poland as for Russia during the last decade there has been much a lot of debate and brilliant publications brilliant monographs on this issue and this is an extremely controversial issue for historians dialogue this is very difficult issue in terms of interpretation both in facts and interpretations it's not yet still quite researched so in Russia this anniversary is completely is completely forgotten just an occasional conference an occasional mention no clear just no clear attitudes on the part of historical community in fact it's passing a notice during the year Polish attitudes are just Polish reaction Polish discussion public discussion certainly more active but again this so this occasion was not used was not used by historians to elaborate put forth a kind of consensus about a very very important issue of still not yet very distant past that just 150 years that means that just this is an impartial remark that the 20th century politically fraud politically charged issues are issues that can resonate in current politics issues that can be instrumentalized for political purposes regardless regardless of the intentions of conscientious and competent historians so these issues are qualified for difficult other issues that are from the perspective of professional historians deserve no less attention and debate don't qualify that was just this is not like a kind of attack or assault or on the very idea of getting together and discussing the issues under the offices of governmental structures but this is just a remark that that current politics and political agenda still affect historians dialogue institutionalized dialogue and okay I think I should stop here okay you want to go next okay there were two issues I feel I need to address first of all pardon yeah all right regarding the value issues yeah that's true Yanukovych fully accepts his political team accepts European orientation European identity but of course it's a lip service I agree that it plays very important normative role because at least they could be pressed both domestically and internationally in order to meet their promises their declarations but at the same time of course they never believed in these values absolutely moreover they sincerely do not believe they sincerely believe that politics everywhere all over the world is about playing with rules not by the rules the West is simply more skillful in this play and because of this value the West is able to pressure Ukraine poor Ukraine government which is not so skillful so it's important of course it's important that they accept this normative value because it enables society and international actors to press them I I agree that the truth cannot be detrimental but can be uncomfortable for us for everybody and it's not a matter in Ukraine it's not a matter of any denial of all those things that happened it's not a matter of justification of UPA crimes or participation in Holocaust or something like this but it's rather a problem of indifference it's a serious problem that issues not properly discussed and of course there are some attempts to undermine this but there are no significant attempts to deny or to justify I'd like you to understand that in Ukraine and in these terms Ukraine is much very different from Russia we don't have any and never had any unified politics of memory or historical politics there was no monolithic government there are very different policies both in the central level and in the regional levels and of course there are very powerful external agents Russia first of all so Ukraine has never had any unified any homogeneous so to say integral politics of memory what is serious problem that all these issues are very difficult to discuss we have very strong tradition of Soviet propaganda which discredited everything wholesale which painted everything in black and white color and still today we have this division like in Belarus and Belarusia we have also Ukraine and Ukraine probably and Soviet Ukrainian still draws on Soviet nationalism and Soviet nationalism was banal nationalism if you remember Michael Billick's excellent book you probably understand that it's much easier to hide this banal nationalism it's powerful, it's very strong but at the same time it's almost invisible because it's banal, it's usual in daily formulas in daily discourses, practices it's much more difficult to notice it but it's very powerful and today today's Soviet, Ukrainian Soviet part of society inherited this all these discourses and because of this they can adopt they can apply old rhetorical discursive formulas against their opponents and this complicates any historical discussion in Ukraine I feel it it's very challenging to talk about value-based policies and dialogue in the country where Brezhnev is considered to be the most successful prime minister Stalin is considered to be a good manager and the breakup of the Soviet Union as the biggest geopolitical catastrophe this is not about Putin this is about a lot of people in Russia and from different consolidated groups something that is missing from the picture of geopolitical people and democracy people and human-right people is something that we really should revise somehow or add to the potential of all our missionary work and the group that is the most likely to talk about value-based policies and change is entrepreneurs and small business something that is part of many, many activities but these people have a lot of things to lose they learn how to do business how to be independent they value achievement the cultural achievement and this is something that is not part of the agenda of traditional democracy-based organization so I think that if we include SMEs not talking about big guys like AxonMobil these transnational corporations they find very good ways to talk to big governments but SMEs plus civil society activists who talk about for example corruption and the case of Navalny shows you in Russia that I'm talking about this particular person with his nationalistic agenda I'm talking about the corruption as an issue and this is getting much more important in Belarus as well because Lukashenko deals with that issue at a time and he's been fighting with corruption 20 years without exactly and now he just yesterday he said that construction is a mafia and corruption again so I think that this is what we should take into account and integrate into any activities support small SME initiative entrepreneurship development through the tools because this is what people understand if you talk about just democracy like history this is the thing that probably make more division lines than dialogue platforms unless somebody has a burning question I can't wait till the next conference which we're going to be planning soon I think we'll finish there and I'd like to thank our panelists I think they all finished in first place in our own song contest so give them another hand Svavik you want to come up you have some concluding thoughts some concluding remarks first of all I would like to say that we are going to disseminate a brief paper a brief policy paper on the basis of this conference and the paper is going to be written jointly by our center and Hitlikon, Janusz Bugański and their team the second concluding remarks concerns next conference I would like to invite all of you for the next year we are going to bring this platform of Polish-Russian dialogue to Washington DC again cooperating in this regard with CSIS and this leads me to the last concluding remarks I would like to thank Hitlikon Janusz Bugański their team, CSIS for giving us the floor here in this next conference is going to be held in new venues congratulations so I think that the crowd in this room they showed that there is need to talk more about the region about the dialogue between Poland and Russia and last but not least to think more strategically about the impact well Polish-Russian terms may have on why the Europe and transatlantic relations I think the next conference we should focus even more on a strategic approach giving the fact that we already took conferences on description what's going on between Poland and Russia and how it may influence the European theme that was my last sentence during this conference, thank you