Greetings, r/poland.

In the context of recent discussions about “PolExit” and the history of Brexit, I’d like to share a personal story that is deeply related to these events.

I am half-Polish; my mom is from Poland, but I was born in the Ukrainian city of Donetsk and lived there until 2022. Since 2014, my home has been occupied by Russia. Before 2014, we were a prosperous city. We existed and functioned well within the Ukrainian system. Our coal was needed in Ukraine, our metal industry benefited the country, and we were competitive.

Russians fooled many people in my town. Although I wasn't fooled, others were. They divided and conquered us. They positioned people from Western Ukraine as "freeloaders" who were blindly profiting from us—that we were “feeding” them. This wasn’t true; we were succeeding as part of a unified system.

They separated us, occupied us, staged a "referendum," and put their pawns in power. In reality, they stole from us and dismantled our factories and mines. Russia doesn’t need our coal or metallurgy; they have their own.

My point is this: Europe is strong when it’s united.

If you support PolExit, please draw a conclusion from my story. Russia wants Europe to be weak and separated, because only then can they conquer you and us

As for the situation post-2022: russians assimilated the people of my town, forcing everyone to accept their passports. Young people face huge trouble getting Ukrainian documents and are coerced into that system. It is miserable. They wanted to make me a part of it as well, but I was lucky; they couldn’t stop me from leaving, even though the FSB threatened me. Although I'm totally safe now and can share the truth. All other close relatives left the place as well.

Just remember the Euro 2012 we hosted together.

by Buy_Constant

13 comments

  1. Tell us more about the story. What does this all look like from 2022 onwards?

  2. I understand your sentiment and I agree, Pole-exit (polexit sounds dumb ngl) is an own goal in our current geopolitical and economical position. We are a net benefiter (alteast for now).

    However you must realize the same reasons the Pole-Exit crowd is championing were once used by the Brexit crowd and for good reason. While the EU as a whole is a wonderful idea on paper (shit we often get good protection laws passed like GDPR) it has as of recent decade or so been continuously ramping up their political and international overreach.

    Just look at chat control or the refugee quotas. If you look at the original drafts of the EU, it was never meant to tackle these problems as that is something that should be up to each nation to vote and decide upon, the purpose of the union was supposed to be purely economical.
    Yes, technically a nation CAN just refuse but then they’re hamstrung into either doing it anyway via fines, penalties, rescinding of privileges or into saying enough is enough and leaving. It’s coercion plain and simple.

    To reiterate, I don’t support Pole-Exit at the moment but the EU is making that decision consistently harder every time they try or even worse DO pass a stupid law to enforce across the EU.

  3. PolExit being a russian psyOps is nothing more but a conspiracy theory. Would PolExit benefit them? Probably, but that does not change the fact that they can’t to sh*t. Stupid people believe in their power, because this is trendy now and mass media are pushing this narrative. 0 hard evidence for that, but “silniczki” don’t care. Russia consider us as enemy at least from 2008 (KaczyĹ„ski helping Georgia), maybe even from 2005 (pomaraĹ„czowa rewolucja). Results? One of the most pro European Union countries inside this structure, with 80-90% people liking EU. Mass media were popular already in 2010. So what has changed? Suddenly in the last few years russian propaganda gained magical powers? Or maybe we should blame the one, who…

    …attached bottle caps to plastic bottles in stupid way for some reason

    …creates immigration issues and refuses to address them
    …adds taxes to coal so we can’t have cheap heating/energy
    …tells us that TSUE is above our constitution, but not constitution of some other countries
    …makes selling old buildings nigh impossible in the close future
    …tells us we can’t have new gas/diesel cars anymore soon

    and so on and on. What do you think? How about instead of crying wolf about russian disinformation we will adress the real culprit behind declining approval of European Union, even though our approval is still one of the higher in EU??

  5. Whether it’s EU or US – we’ll always be someone’s dog.

    We don’t have to be EU member to be in NATO nor Schengen.

    I wish there was a Baltic or Baltic + Nordics union. Or Visegrad group.

    It’s clear as a day that we’re one big market for French and German companies. Everyone keeps talking about EU funding but if you wanna renovate your flat or build a house most of the materials and big stores are french or German. Most of the cars are German.

    It’s not like we Poles are bunch of dummies and wouldn’t prosper without EU. We would. We are hardworking nation.
    We work more than Germans in average – but what of it?
    Nothing really. We don’t have strong brands

    I wish we were stronger so we wouldn’t have to choose sides.

    EU is not perfect. Same as USA but what can we do

  6. How was live in Donetsk in 2014-22? How is life there since 2022?

  7. I dont think there is many who still shout for PolExit, until war it was a thing but now not really, however that does not solve the problem.

    The problem is that media and others(even like you) just can see 2 ways: 1. Stay in Eu – good, 2. Opt out – bad. But noone try to put the things as they are – EU is a good thing we should not opt out, noone should, however OUR CURRENT LEADERSHIP NEED TO BE OUT, thats the real prasite of EU, our leaders who run the show for over a decade while we can see EU, as a whole, become weaker year to year, we do not advance at anything, we cant ALL TOGETHER protect one Ukraine.

    Politics need to be accountable, EU is crumbling right now and whats their answer? Russian propaganda, but lets be honest, how would russia propaganda work if citizens were happy? Is it even possible?

  8. > Europe is strong when it’s united

    I don’t feel very united when Brussels decides to forcibly relocate immigrants other countries failed to stop at their borders. 

    Happy downvoting if you’re offended, though. 

  9. Thank you for posting. This is 100% accurate. Europe must be united to keep Russia & their corrupt system far away.

  10. It’s not just Russia. This is also the view of the United States and China.

    The EU is a superpower and whether we like it or not, we are always competing with the others.

    We need to stop being naive to these other threats and start living in reality. It’s not the 1990s anymore……

  11. That’s exactly what I think when I see another PATRIOTS.RU photo of far-right European leaders. They want the EU to collapse because they think a divided Europe is stronger. That is completely wrong and plays right into the hands of Russian propaganda.

  13. Mamy pamiętać o waszej tragedii jaką jest obecna wojna ale wy nie pamiętacie i nam zabraniacie pamiętać o naszej tragedii jaką jest rzeź wołyńska?

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