Ms Clinton and Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski after their bilateral meeting in Kraków Courtesy of the US State Department

In Poland during a four-day visit to former Eastern Bloc countries, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a speech on democracy and pledged $15 million to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation. She also signed a protocol amending the 2008 Ballistic Missile Defense Agreement and enrolled Poland in the global shale gas initiative.

The attention was welcome, since the Obama administration’s focus on “resetting” relations with Russia had some worried that the US-Poland partnership would take a back seat.

The Obama White House’s scrapping of the Bush-era missile defense plan had also raised fears, despite a new plan having been put in its place.

“There is still some uncertainty as to how Russia will treat this region,” said Janusz Onyszkiewicz, chairman of the Euro-Atlantic Association of Poland and senior fellow at Warsaw’s Center for International Relations.

“Will it be tempted to restore a certain dominance, or will it accept the fact that Poland and Ukraine want to be totally independent?” he asked. “This is something which we are a bit worried about and it looks like the US is taking that into consideration.”

Attending celebrations for the 10th anniversary of the Community of Democracies in Kraków, Ms Clinton said that Poland was an example of what democracies could ac-complish.

She also reiterated the importance of cooperating to fight “the steel vice in which governments around the world are slowly crushing civil society and the human spirit,” mentioning in passing Russia’s poor human rights record.

As to how US-Poland-Russia relations would change with Bronisław Komorowski as president, Mr Onyszkiewicz said that the situation would not change drastically.

“The approach will perhaps be more balanced [than with late-president Kaczyński],” he added.