Poland’s new president can improve relations with Russia — lawmaker

MOSCOW, May 25. /TASS/. Andrzej Duda, who won Sunday’s presidential election in Poland, has the chance of starting relations with Russia from scratch despite the remaining differences between Moscow and Warsaw over Ukraine, senior Russian lawmaker Alexey Pushkov has told TASS.

Pushkov, who heads the foreign affairs committee of the Russian lower house of parliament, the State Duma, blamed the negative trend in relations with Poland before Moscow’s May 9 celebrations on the policy of incumbent President Bronislaw Komorowski.

"It is important that in the eyes of the Russian political opinion [Duda] personally played no active role in the attempts to disown the Victory of our country in World War II in contrast with Komorowski," he said.

Pushkov said despite the acute contradictions between Moscow and Warsaw on the Ukrainian conflict, Duda has a chance of improving the relations with Russia. "Let’s see if he takes it," he added.

The Russian lawmaker did not rule out that the most active phase of confrontation in Moscow’s relations with Washington is giving place to "moderate confrontation."

"Will this influence the position of the new Polish president, this is the question. But we know very well that the changes in the US diplomacy are monitored very carefully by the European allies," he added.

"Here in case of shifts in the Russian-US ties, the countries that will thoughtlessly insist on continuing or even deepening confrontation with Russia may lose as they can find themselves on the sidelines of the events in a situation when certain changes occur," he said.

The presidential election runoff was held last Sunday. According to early returns, Duda, a candidate from Poland’s biggest opposition Law and Justice party, placed 4% ahead of Komorowski, who has already acknowledged his defeat.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was determined to seek a constructive relationship with Poland’s new leader.