Be that as it may but the situation that arose on April 1 has achieved Himalayan heights of hypocrisy in an organisation already in bureaucratic and procedural stasis like the UN,

I could have written that the only hope was the American Moscow consulate’s decision to refuse Russian diplomats their entry visas for the 24 and 25 April including Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to the Security Council summit meeting.

But this had already happened, last autumn in fact. The Americans refused entry visas to the Russians, but it made no impression on them nor on anyone else in the world. It had nothing to do with the foreign minister that time, but no matter. The Russians then shouted louder; now probably they would scream, more disinformation, maybe they could cause an international incident. But would this influence the thinking about the war in Ukraine in invading the country in the first place?

The Polish Press Agency (PAP) carried a dispatch on April 19 from the British Defence Ministry. This stated that “since the start of its full scale invasion of Ukraine Russia has exploited all possible channels to sow disinformation to discredit the Ukrainian government and to diminish international support for Ukraine, including the deliberate creation and manipulation of information”. It continued that one element of this was to “launder the narrative”, promoting third party sources or unconfirmed sources in the social media. Then this would bleed into mainstream or national media. This was to hide the original source of the information which would facilitate Russia to distance itself from the information. Next, it would promote false fragments at the same time masking its intentions.

In the next few days, before the UN Security Council summit, we shall be treated to not just a single such act of disinformation.

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  The date is not accidental as on April 25 1945 in San Francisco the first official UN conference took place, with forty seven countries participating, which had signed the United Nations declaration of December 1 1942. The conference was already being manipulated as the republic of Poland had signed but was not recognised as an official founder. The Moscow-installed government had not been recognised by the Western powers and the then London-based government-in-exile had not been recognised by the Soviet Union. It dealt the cards and others played the hand that they were given, and marked.

So why didn’t the Western allies protest? Why did they roll over so easily to the Soviets? Those manipulations are shocking even today, especially in the light of the hope invested in the new organization that was meant to be different to that of the previous League of Nations. It was meant to give the nations “the warranty that all the peoples of all countries could lead their lives free from fear and want” (IX point of the Crimea declaration seen by Poles as the ‘Yalta betrayal’). Piotr Zaremba in his history of the United States described superbly and in detail the manipulations, provocations and action before April 25 1945. It is a monumental work and the fifth volume is entitled ‘The Victory of Democracy: The America of Roosevelt and Truman in the Second World War, a political history of the U.S. from 1900’.

The United States and Britain should have been ashamed of themselves in 1944-45, not to say of not preventing a situation that decided on the future of the world for the following fifty years, and which continues to this day.

An example of this is the current tragic array of power in the Security Council in 2023. As ever there are five permanent members U.S.A., Russia, France, Britain and China. Each one has the power of veto, even Russia which for over a year, has been the aggressor. There are rotating members every two years, the members being taken from ten other countries. In 1992 after the fall of the Soviet Union did the remaining permanent members of the Security Council and the General Assembly question the right of Russia to the unconditional continuation of the mission that had been compromised by the Soviet Union? Did they give in to Soviet words and blandishments prepared thoroughly in advance from the body of international casuistry?

  But returning to today and the Moscow delegation and its arrival. The American permission for Sergei Lavrov’s plane to land also comes into play here. Will it, won't it? Whatever the outcome, the presence or absence of the Russians will not solve the issue.

What would it solve? This is the question that the United Nations or rather the Disunited Nations have had to ask themselves for a long time. The attempts to reform this compromised and corrupt organization are almost permanently ongoing, but without the will or strength to carry it out. Is this because Moscow’s embrace is so firm with that of other bureaucrats? Despite this, it does remain an organization and structure that has some form of legislative framework on which you can depend on ‘just in case?’

Another question then, in what kind of ‘case’ therefore? Could there be another case more terrifying or clear than the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, a member of the Permanent Security Council and which has the power of veto over another? If this is not the acme of cynicism, or a sophisticated political power play, opportunism or stalling and simple deviousness among the great and good of the world, then what was the point of the summits, dealing with nuclear aggression?

The whole of the UN hasn’t manipulated the thick heads from Moscow for the past 78 years. They hadn’t thought this up, just give in to any ‘irresponsible’ individual. They outlasted the crises in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan Georgia and Crimea in 2014 to use the bloodiest examples so why not now in 2023?

  The world is left with seeking new solutions because those established after the second world war have been exhausted. They served the lies, current in those times. Today we are in new times and have new lies and new security structures, so could we accommodate these here?

–Barbara Sułek-Kowalska

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and jornalists

– Translated by Jan Darasz