Polish people’s opinions about the threat to the country’s independence are currently very divided. During the first half of May only an insignificant majority of respondents thought there was currently no genuine threat to Poland’s independence (43%) compared to those (42%) who considered such a threat was real, with 15% not having a clear opinion.

Despite the appreciable improvement in perceptions of the country’s security noted in February 2020, the results of surveys carried out during the last eight years generally offer a sharp contrast to those of 1992-2013, when a decided majority of respondents maintained there was no threat to Poland’s independence. The worst assessment of the situation came in April 2014, after the so-called referendum in Crimea and the peninsula’s annexation by Russia. At that juncture 47% of those surveyed perceived a threat to Polish sovereignty, while 41% did not. The increase in anxiety concerning Poland’s independence was noted after Russia annexed Crimea but still before the attacks of pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine and the escalation of violence in this region. The only previous occasion that those who saw a threat to independence outnumbered those who did not was in February 1991 (44% as against 33%). At that time Poland was still a member of the Warsaw Pact, with Soviet forces stationed in the country. The threat was mostly perceived by those who were in favour of abolishing the Warsaw Pact and making a military alliance with the West. In May 1992, after the Warsaw Pact was dissolved and the Soviet Army began withdrawing its units from Poland (with the Polish government actually signing a package of treaties concerning the withdrawal of Soviet troops during the time the survey was being carried out), and after the de facto collapse of the USSR and its formal dissolution, the percentage of Poles who thought the country’s independence was threatened fell to 28%, with the majority (58%) seeing the threat as nonexistent. This May’s assessments are better only than those of February 1991 and April 2014. Thus survey results would suggest that perceptions of a threat to Poland’s security, and particularly of anxiety concerning the country’s independence, are generally linked to the activity of Poland’s largest eastern neighbour.

More on this subject in the CBOS report about the security of the country and issues relating to defence (O bezpieczeństwie państwa i kwestiach związanych z obronnością).