Did Vladimir Putin really tell Donald Tusk that Poland should join with Russia in partitioning Ukraine? No, as it turns out, he did not; but Poles spent much of Tuesday thinking he had, due to comments made by Radek Sikorski, the former foreign minister. In a story by Ben Judah in Politico, Mr Sikorski was quoted saying that Mr Putin had made the offer to Mr Tusk, the former Polish prime minister soon to be president of the European Council, during a visit to Moscow in Feb. 2008. Mr Sikorski claimed Mr Putin had said that "Ukraine is an artificial country and that Lwow [Lviv] is a Polish city and why don't we just sort it out together."
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Mr Sikorski's claim of a Russian offer to split Ukraine played into heightened Polish fears of Russian expansionism over the past year.
