Polish President Karol Nawrocki has warned that there are no agreements with Russia, “only lies,” a verdict he said is repeatedly confirmed by the long history of Moscow violating the very treaties it signs.
Speaking on Saturday during a ceremony to mark the 195th anniversary of the 1830 Polish revolt against Russian rule, known as the November Uprising, Nawrocki said: “With the Muscovites, neither in the 19th century, nor in the 20th century, nor in the 21st century, there are no agreements.
“There are only lies there, a desire to take away the spirit, and a desire to destroy.”
Nawrocki added that the lesson applies as much to modern Poland as it did to past generations.
“This is a lesson we must all learn, having deep faith in Polish cadets, officers, and generals,” he said.
As US President Donald Trump and his team intensify efforts to broker an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II, TVP World looks at the agreements and commitments Russia has repeatedly violated.
The Russian Empire
Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca
One of the earliest examples is the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, signed in 1774 between Russia and the Ottoman Empire after the Fifth Russo-Turkish War. The treaty recognized the independence of the Crimean Khanate, yet within less than a decade Russia annexed the peninsula outright. Initially, Empress Catherine II installed a ruler subservient to her. But by 1783, Russia had carried out a full annexation of the peninsula, violating the terms of the treaty, and establishing a precedent it would return to centuries later in 2014.
Treaty of Tilsit
A similar pattern emerged after the Treaty of Tilsit, signed in 1807 between Russia and France. Although Russia committed to joining Napoleon’s Continental Blockade of Britain, by 1810 it had quietly reopened its ports to British goods and imposed punitive tariffs on French imports, ultimately helping trigger Napoleon’s disastrous 1812 invasion of Russia, which ended in catastrophic defeat for the French emperor
The same disregard for binding commitments surfaced again following the Crimean War. The Treaty of Paris, signed in 1856 with France, Britain, Turkey and Sardinia, demilitarized the Black Sea. Yet in 1870, exploiting France’s collapse in its war with Prussia, Russia unilaterally reintroduced its warships there—openly overturning a treaty that legally could not be changed without unanimous consent.
Russo-Japanese Protocols on Korea
Even in East Asia, agreements proved fragile. The Russo-Japanese Protocols on Korea, signed in 1896 and 1898 with Japan, pledged mutual non-interference in Korean affairs. But by 1903–1904 Russia had effectively taken control of the Korean Peninsula, an expansion that helped ignite the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 and contributed to the eventual collapse of the tsarist regime.
The Soviet Union
The Treaty of Riga
After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the pattern resurfaced quickly. The Treaty of Riga, signed in 1921 with the Second Polish Republic, established borders, reparations, cultural restitution and repatriation rights. Soviet authorities violated these provisions almost immediately, blocking repatriation and withholding reparations, leaving more than 1.5 million Poles stranded in the USSR. Many would later become victims of Stalin’s terror.
Non-Aggression Pact Between Poland and the USSR
The Polish-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, signed in 1932, proved equally fragile. It was rendered void in 1939 when the USSR concluded the secret protocol of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany, partitioning Poland between them, and then invaded on September 17 under the claim that the Polish state had “ceased to exist.”
Soviet-Finnish Non-Aggression Pact
The Soviet-Finnish Non-Aggression Pact, signed in 1932 and renewed in 1934, met a similar fate. In November 1939 Soviet troops staged a provocation near the Finnish border, blamed Finland, broke the pact, and launched a full-scale invasion, later establishing a puppet government meant to administer an annexed Finland.
The Yalta Declaration
Even agreements with Western allies were not respected. The Yalta Declaration on Poland, agreed in 1945 with the United States and the United Kingdom, promised free elections and political pluralism. Instead, the Polish Workers’ Party, backed by Soviet power, blocked opposition parties and brutally falsified the first postwar elections, cementing communist rule.
The Russian Federation
After the fall of the USSR, expectations that a democratic Russia might finally adhere to international norms quickly proved misplaced.
Ukraine learned this firsthand when it signed the Budapest Memorandum in 1994 with Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom, giving up the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for guarantees of its sovereignty.
Russia pledged to respect Ukraine’s borders and refrain from coercion or aggression, but soon began undermining the agreement, chiefly by exploiting Ukraine’s dependence on Russian energy supplies.
The 2014 annexation of Crimea and the backing of separatists in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, constituted clear violations of the memorandum’s core principles.
Ukraine’s 1997 Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership with Russia fared no better. It affirmed territorial integrity and a pledge to refrain from force, yet Russia violated it by seizing Crimea and destabilizing eastern Ukraine. Kyiv formally terminated the treaty in 2018.
Even more specific agreements were disregarded. The 2003 bilateral accord on the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait guaranteed free navigation, yet after annexing Crimea, Russia treated the sea as its internal waters, imposed lengthy coast-guard inspections, fired on and seized Ukrainian vessels in 2018, and later closed most of the sea to commercial traffic under the pretext of military exercises.
Invasion of Georgia
Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia again showed how little weight Moscow attaches to agreements it signs. After launching a military assault into the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Russia accepted an EU-brokered six-point ceasefire that required its forces to withdraw to pre-war positions.
But Russia refused to implement the core provisions of the ceasefire. Instead of withdrawing, its forces remained in the occupied territories, which Moscow later recognised as independent states, a move condemned by the United Nations and most European governments.
These violations served as a prelude to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Why the past matters
Russia’s long record of breaking international agreements casts a long shadow over current U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine. As Trump and his team work to craft a settlement, European governments have warned that any peace plan built on terms favourable to Moscow would risk repeating a familiar pattern in which concessions offered in the hope of stability end up inviting further Russian aggression rather than containing it.
That concern is sharpened by Russia’s ongoing hybrid warfare against European states—ranging from cyberattacks and disinformation to sabotage, espionage and attacks on critical infrastructure.
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow is ready to “state in writing” that it has no intention of attacking Europe.
Yet given Russia’s long history of violating treaties, and Putin’s own record of breaking commitments—including those made to Ukraine—few European leaders are willing to take such assurances at face value.