Polish special forces fighters guarded the oligarch Roman Abramovich, who acted as a mediator in the Ukrainian-Russian negotiations in the first weeks of the full-scale war, and also guaranteed the safety of representatives of Ukraine at the negotiations in Brest, Belarus, in late February and early March 2022.
The Polish publication Dziennik Gazeta Prawna wrote about this with reference to its sources on Tuesday.
As stated in the material, the Ukrainian delegation led by the Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov was brought to Belarus by an S-70i Black Hawk helicopter belonging to the aviation group of the GROM military unit, and the Ukrainian delegation was guarded by the operators of the "Commandos" military unit from Lublinets, who cooperated. long before full-scale war.
The flights of Ukrainian officials to Brest from the Polish side were overseen by the then head of the Prime Minister's Office, Michal Dvorchyk, and the deputy head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Marcin Pshidach.
In turn, the flights of the Ukrainian delegation and Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich for negotiations in Ankara were overseen by Jakub Kumokh, then minister in the office of the President of Poland. Kumoh, who is fluent in Turkish and was Poland's ambassador to Turkey, accompanied the Ukrainians and Abramovich to Ankara.
"At the beginning of March, it was not clear whether the Ukrainians who flew to Belarus for negotiations could be sure of their return. The Polish security service gave certain guarantees that they would return unharmed," said one of the participants of the events on condition of anonymity.
The military who took part in the flights confirmed to the DGP that they had calculated the risk of incidents during the operation. It was also analyzed how to respond to a scenario in which there would be some kind of threat to soldiers from a NATO country.
The interlocutor of the Polish publication claims that the reason for Poland's involvement in the negotiations was the hope that the Russians, seeing the strength of the Ukrainians' resistance, "will start talking for real." "After the first negotiations, it became clear that it was an illusion," he added.
Dziennik Gazeta Prawna's source claims that during the negotiations in Brest, the Russians suggested to Reznikova that Ukraine declare its capitulation. The head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense allegedly sent the Russians to follow the Russian warship.
"The benefit was that the delegations informed us about the situation at the fronts. In addition, as a result of these negotiations, Abramovich's contacts appeared, which later helped in the exchange of prisoners of war from "Azovstal" for Russians. He himself probably fought for his life . wanted to stay in the West and at the same time not expose himself to danger from Putin," the interlocutor added.