Russia wanted to involve Poland in occupying part of Ukraine.
This was stated by former Polish Foreign Minister and current Marshal of the Sejm Radoslaw Sikorski, the Yevropeiska Pravda online newspaper reported.
"Putin wants Poland to commit troops to Ukraine. These were the signals they sent us. We have known how they think for years. We have known this is what they think for years. This was one of the first things that Putin said to my prime minister, Donald Tusk, [soon to be President of the European Council] when he visited Moscow. He went on to say Ukraine is an artificial country and that Lviv is a Polish city and why don't we just sort it out together," Sikorski was quoted as saying by Politico Magazine.
Sikorski also said that Poland had made it clear to Putin that it would not participate in that. "We made it very, very clear to them - we wanted nothing to do with this," he said.
He said that Russia wants to push the West "to the limit."
"Putin thinks he's facing a bunch of degenerate weaklings. And he thinks we wouldn't go to war to defend the Baltics. You know, maybe he's right," Sikorski said.
As reported, in March 2014, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma and LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky proposed that Poland seek a referendum on the accession of Ukraine's five western regions - Volyn, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil and Rivne regions - to Poland.