The political agenda between Ukraine and Poland openly deteriorated in the early 2020s. Routine phrases about strategic partnership were heard but there were no ideas or energy in either capital to fill it.

The election of Zelenskyy as president added a little bit of drive – his slight interest in history and memory politics impressed the Poles. But the lack of prospects for Ukrainian EU membership hindered most ambitious projects.

Everything has changed with the war. But the question remains open: is the warming of relations between the two countries irreversible? Journalist Olena Babakova from Warsaw looked into the matter in her article Together Until Elections Separate Us: How Poland is changing its attitude towards Ukraine during war (Ukr).

The situation changed right before the full-scale invasion. In the face of Russian aggression, the sense of mission returned to Polish-Ukrainian relations – to restrain Russia and preserve the unity of the West in support of Ukraine.

Today, Poland ranks seventh in terms of the amount of assistance provided to Ukrainians (3.52 billion euros) and is number four when it comes to military assistance (2.42 billion euros).

In addition to military assistance, the attitude of the Poles towards war refugees has won the hearts of Ukrainians.

There are several reasons why Warsaw is so involved in helping its eastern neighbours.

First, this is the unwavering course of the Polish elites to support Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity, which the Poles themselves call the "Giedroyc doctrine." Even disputes over the politics of memory in the second half of the 2010s did not change this.

Second, the Poles perceive the war in Ukraine as a threat to their own security.

This is related to the third reason: the Poles feel empathy towards Ukrainians in confrontation with Moscow because they can easily imagine themselves in our shoes.

"Russian aggression has brought our nations so close together and has generated such a huge capital of public sympathy and trust. We are faced with a unique opportunity over the last century today to rebuild the destroyed Polish-Ukrainian community by German and Muscovite aggressors and Bolshevik totalitarianism," said Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Zbigniew Rau, in April.

After the minister's speech, comments arose that Rau was creating groundwork for a Polish-Ukrainian confederation. In the end, the idea of creating a joint Polish-Ukrainian state were voiced by the Polish right-wing party last year but immediately faced sharp criticism as naive and ones that feed Russian propaganda.

The challenge for the Polish-Ukrainian partnership became Polish domestic politics.

A few days after Zelenskyy's visit to Poland on April 5, the Poles began to talk about a grain crisis.

When protests by farmers spread across the country, the Polish government gave in to their demands.

In October, parliamentary elections will be held in Poland, where the ruling party "Law and Justice" will fight for a third term. In order not to risk losing the votes of farmers, instead of auditing customs and grain traders, Warsaw banned the import of Ukrainian agricultural products.

At the same time, the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU was violated.

It is not worth disregarding the already existing tension around migrants and refugees from Ukraine, as well as the difficult shared past.

But there are also things that do not depend directly on Poles and Ukrainians.