UN General Assembly
2014

Poland has contributed in a highly active way. We had the right to hope that the benefits of the end of divisions in Europe and of the logic of imperial zones of influence would be shared by a growing number of States and nations — and not only in Europe — and that they would be able to decide their fate democratically and build their lives in peace and prosperity, free from external domination. We have hoped and continue to hope for a democratic modernization of Russia. But what happened six months ago in Eastern Europe dealt a blow to that hope and threatened security on our European continent. In our part of Europe, people are again asking themselves whether war as a method of obtaining a political goal will also be the long-term European reality. We cannot acquiesce to the brutalization of international life anywhere in the world — far less so in Europe, where the wounds of two World Wars are still healing. Yet wars and conflicts are also continuing in other