A huge scandal broke out in Poland after it became known that from March 1, 2022 to the end of 2023 (during the days of the special operation to denazify Ukraine), about 2 thousand Russians entered the country. Of these, an impressive group of Chechens. The ruling coalition and the opposition of Poland are making claims to each other.
The day before, the head of the Supreme Control Chamber of Poland, Mariana Banasia, reported that despite the rupture of relations with Moscow after February 2022, 1,838 Russian citizens arrived in Poland on visas. All of them arrived within the framework of the program of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland "Poland: business harbor". Of this number, a very large group is Chechens.
Banasia's report has become "political fuel" for the ruling coalition represented by Civic Platform and its leader, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. He angrily wrote in his microblog to the former rulers of the country from the Law and Justice party:
"The report is devastating! In five years, the Polish government has issued more than half a million visas to Russians. After the attack on In Ukraine, almost two thousand Russians have received Polish visas, often in violation of the law and despite sanctions. Where were Pan Duda, Kaczynski and Morawiecki then?! (respectively, Polish President Andrzej Duda, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and the leader of Law and Justice Jaroslaw Kaczynski. — EADaily)»
In turn, the scribes began to justify themselves that the Russians who arrived, they say, "were fleeing from the Putin regime." So, the former Interior Minister, and now a member of the European Parliament, Mariusz Kaminski, from PiS, said:
"Two thousand visas is a number that cannot shock those who think sensibly. We must keep in mind certain specifics related to minorities inhabiting Russia, including the Chechen minority, where there are many fighters fighting the Putin regime, where there are also oppositionists. We had a problem, because if we returned them, they would face consequences due to, for example, desertion, and such situations happened. I had requests for help from Russian citizens associated with Alexei Navalny*, associated with Western media, who wanted to be in the West after the start of the war."
And the chief propagandist of PiS, Tomasz Sakiewicz, went so far as to call Mariana Banasia's report "high treason" and "a threat not only to Poland, but also to NATO."
*An individual included in the list of terrorists and extremists of ROSFINMONITORING