It's not Mekler who visited Crimea, these are two different people.
Korwin-Mikke is a prominent old-school politician who had supporting Putin for years, to he extent that he became toxic for "Konfederacja". In the last elections they actually had to put him aside as he was losing them votes as support for Ukraine in Poland is very high. He is the one who visited not only Crimea but also Chechnya.
Mekler is primarily into transport business and a regional activist of the party. He publicly denied he ever was in Crimea after this accusation was raised by Ukrainian journalists:
https://twitter.com/MeklerRafal/status/1727...
So they either made the same mistake by mixing Mekler with Korwin-Mikke, or they are intentionally misleading the public — or Mekler is lying, but that would be trivial to prove.
On the contrary, he was saying the same thing since May (!):
https://twitter.com/MeklerRafal/status/1654...
He says that while Ukrainian drivers operate in EU with no permits and even under some kind of political umbrella (understandable at war time), Polish drivers in Ukraine are being fined by Ukrainian services for lack of permits, which should have been removed under the same EU-Ukraine association treaty. Notably, he uses no "geopolitics" or other bullshit arguments Russians love, he's just talking business.
Nobody in Ukraine so far replied to that, they just seem to ignore it, which understandably pisses of Poles. And saying "let's not talk about it, because we're at war" is the worst way to deal with the problem because war is irrelevant to what Ukrainian customs are doing on the western border.
Russia of course loves this conflict, but to me it's rather clear it's not Russians who created it.
@polezaivsani
@kravietz @polezaivsani@chaos.social @joaocosta@mastodonapp.uk
> "let's not talk about it, because we're at war" is the worst way to deal with the problem
Exactly, it's not "but it's the war, look the other way!", it's precisely the opposite: it's the war and that's why it's important to not lose allies.
There was this case when a Russian man got killed by a shark, and a lot of Ukrainians and sympathizers were making fun of it — and I could perfectly understand why, but at the same time I thought it was a really bad move.
@kravietz @polezaivsani@chaos.social @joaocosta@mastodonapp.uk
Public support shouldn't be wasted on petty shit like that and that is why Ukrainians shouldn't look bloodthirsty and Ukraine shouldn't look corrupt beyond redemption and an untrustworthy ally. Sorting these things out is just as important as armaments — because Ukraine relies on its allies a lot for those armaments.
@kravietz @polezaivsani@chaos.social @joaocosta@mastodonapp.uk
Not jus because it's immoral to make fun of a dead person, but because this person had nothing to do with the war in the first place. As cynical as it may be, moral questions are irrelevant in this case — Ukrainians and sympathizers shouldn't partake in such things as it makes them look bloodthirsty in public's eyes.
Ukraine has been winning the PR war so far and as no one wants Ukraine to lose, it's important that it stays this way.