Donald Trump's absence from an event commemorating the 80th anniversary of the invasion of Poland is stoking fears that the security alliance between Washington and Warsaw is weaker than the two governments have let on.

The 'America First' president's decision to stay home, in anticipation of a deadly hurricane and send a stand in to the Sunday event that more than two dozen other leaders are attending, sent a tremble through the allied nation the Soviet Union occupied during WWII.

Trump's budding relationship with Vladimir Putin is a source of anxiety in Warsaw, where public opinion would otherwise lean in the U.S. president's favor.

'It was the situation when United States was kind of protector of this part of Europe and Russia [it] was really comfortable for us. And now we are kind of in dangerous place,' Anna Kozlakiewicz, 28, said.

Donald Trump's absence from an event commemorating the 80th anniversary of the invasion of Poland in WWII is stoking fears that the security alliance between Washington and Warsaw is weaker than the two governments have let on

US Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen Pence wave after arriving at Okecie Airport to the ceremony marking 80th anniversary of World War II outbreak in in Warsaw, Poland

Officials and leaders, among them Pence, Duda, and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, stand during a memorial ceremony in Warsaw

Supporters of Trump attend the ceremony marking 80th anniversary of World War II outbreak at the Jozef Pilsudski Square in Warsaw

Trump said last week that he's inclined to welcome Putin to the United States next year in conjunction with the G7 summit the U.S. will take its turn hosting in a significant rebuff to heads of government who said Russia cannot rejoin the alliance until it ends its annexation of Crimea.

Three days later Trump postponed a visit to Poland on the basis that he must remain in the United States to combat a Category 5 hurricane that is expected to hit Florida and other states with land on America's southeastern coastline.

In a sudden announcement on Thursday, he said Vice President Mike Pence would represent the U.S. government in Pilsudski Square, where Trump had agreed to deliver history-making remarks on the German and Soviet occupations of Poland.

'It's something very important for me to be here. The storm looks like it could be a very, very big one indeed. And Mike will be going,' he said.

Trump said last week that he's inclined to welcome Vladimir Putin to the United States next year

For Poles like Tom Vwierzcki, a 43-year-old biologist and vocal Trump backer, Pence was an acceptable replacement, although he said he was disappointed his city would not be receiving the U.S. president.

'I know you have a very big problem about hurricane. I think this is good he will stay in the USA. But this is good for you, not for us,' he said.

Attorney Alexandra Zabielska also said, 'I wish he was obviously, but it’s totally understandable. I mean, I would expect my president to stay in Poland, if something like that was happening here.’

She invoked his 'America First' foreign policy and said,'I wouldn't expect anything else from him, especially with the fact that he always says that he always puts America first.'

Trump had signaled on Monday that his interest in returning to Poland, which he'd traveled to on one of his first trips outside of the United States as president, was waning as he grew travel weary during a trip to France.

Still, it came as surprise to some, including Warsaw resident Natalia Bednarska, when he said directed Pence to travel to Poland to deliver remarks at the Sunday ceremony, especially after the positive reception Trump received during a 2017 visit to the country.

‘Of course we’re upset he’s not coming. What is he going to do over there? Is he going to stop the hurricane from coming?’ the 30-year-old IT specialist asked.

Bringing up the commemorative event that the German president and chancellor were attending, she asked, ‘How are we supposed to feel about it? Seriously, because this is 80th anniversary, and this is quite a big thing for us for Poles, and he’s supposed to be friend of ours and blah, blah, blah.

'And we were thinking that he was actually going to announce that we are in visa program, right, and we will be able to go to America without visa,' she said. 'And now he’s not coming.’

Trump said at a June 12 news conference, standing next to Polish President Andrzej Duda, that a final determination would be made in the next 90 days.

He pointedly told a reporter who asked if he'd make the announcement while he was in Warsaw in September, 'I think it’s a very good idea. Thank you very much for giving me that idea.'

No announcement is anticipated, however, while Pence, National Security Advisor John Bolton and Energy Secretary Rick Perry are in Poland.

A senior official indicated Friday on a call with journalists that Poland has not yet met the stringent requirements for participation.

'We have been making significant progress. Poland has been taking tremendous steps to bring themselves in alignment with our statutory requirements. And so, as soon as Poland meets the statutory requirements, the United Sates looks forward to bringing Poland into the Visa Waiver Program. And that’s all I have,' the Trump aide said.

President Donald Trump speech at the monument to the heroes of the 1944 Warsaw Rising against the occupying Nazi Germans in Krasinski Square in Warsaw during visit in Poland in July of 2017

Trump's claim in June that the visa waiver approval would be coming 'fairly soon, ' as he announced that he would visit, only to cancel his trip at the last minute, left Bednarska feeling disappointed and disgruntled.

She was one of several young people who told DailyMail.com she was under the impression that Trump would be announcing in Warsaw that the U.S. had approved Poland's participation in the visa waiver program at a bilateral program the day after the commemoration.

Another young woman, Kozlakiewicz, said she was forced to leave the United States while Poland's is evaluated, because it is not financially feasible to live in America without a work visa.

Piotr Buras, director of the Warsaw bureau of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said Trump's hurricane declaration was reason enough not to come to Warsaw at this time but the about-face is 'symbolic' of a mistaken belief that 'American engagement in Poland is really rock solid and that we can count on the American president.’

'It shows that our expectations in Poland, and the conviction on the side of the Polish government, especially, that we now have a strategic relationship with the U.S. and then the security partnership like any other country in the world, that we have replaced maybe the United Kingdom as main partner of the U.S. or Germany or whatever, that it’s an illusion' he said.

Buras told DailyMail.com, 'You don’t need the cancellation of Trump’s visit to say that. But somehow it’s symbolic.'

He said Trump's dispatch of 1,000 additional U.S. troops to Poland, as well as plans to sell liquefied natural gas and defense equipment to the region, are about boosting American interests.

'On the horizon of the American foreign policy, especially in Trump, especially Poland is not such a big factor and such a big issue as the other side would like to believe. So that, for me, this is simply a sobering development. That yes, this is the reality, regardless of the actual reasons for this cancellation,' he said.

Buras argued that Trump's presence in the U.S. is 'probably not necessary' to the federal government to carry out hurricane preparations.

'But it is important for domestic political reasons, which is understandable, but it shows that domestic policy in the U.S. is actually much more important than relations with one of the key allies, and an ally who perceives themselves of particular importance for the U.S.,' he assessed.

The US President Donald Trump and the First Lady of the United States Melania Trump, with the Polish President Andrzej Duda and the First Lady of the Poland Agata Agata Kornhauser-Duda, at Krasinski Square, near the Warsaw Uprising Monument, on July 6, 2017

All the better, said 34-year-old computer game translator and Warsaw resident Kamila, who declined to give her last name in an interview.

‘Maybe I am a little more happy, because I don’t think I would like to have President Trump in my near presence. I don’t like him. He is like an orange buffoon,' she said.

Kamila said the military build-up in Poland and elsewhere is harmful to the planet and promulgates the idea that another war will take place.

'I think we should focus on the fact that our planet it dying, instead of fighting with each other, or preparing to fight, maybe we should focus on saving our planet and making sure it [won’t] really be gone in 100 years or so,' she said of military cooperation between Poland and the United States.

She acknowledged that she does worry about actions Putin could take yet suggested that older Poles are overly fearful of the Russian strongman.

‘Other people still remember the war, or remember their parents talking about the war. I think that even my parents, they, for example, my mother, she used say as a child, as a small girl, she used to say that she was afraid of Germans. I think it’s somewhere deep inside them, and that’s why they are worried,' she said.

‘But in general, I think that the whole world should be worried about Putin, because he is not a pleasant person, and in general the situation in Russia is far from perfect.’

Of Trump's attempts to befriend him, she said, ‘It’s weird. It’s weird that Trump wants to have such a close relationship with Russia. I really don’t see the point of it. Because what does Trump need from Putin and Russia. That’s the question.’

Donald Trump scrapped a trip on Thursday to Warsaw, where other heads of state are gathering this weekend to commemorate the invasion that launched WWII, saying he needed to remain in Washington to oversee the federal response to a hurricane that's expected to hit Puerto Rico

Trump's outreach to Putin should be cause for concern, said Buras, who expounded on 'transatlantic rifts' between the US and Germany and Poland in a Sunday piece that appeared on Balkan Insights' website.

'The general perception in Poland is that Russia is a real threat and is a threat for Poland, a physical threat, and it also a threat to Europe, in the broader sense,' he explained. 'And that the U.S. is the only possible security guarantee for Poland against Russia. And there is a very broad consensus in Poland on that.’

Outreach to Putin is the dirty underbelly of U.S. relations with Poland, he said, describing it as a topic that Duda would not have been likely to broach, even if he did have an audience with the U.S. president.

'But that shows that this partnership, it’s not a real one,' he added. 'I think We put far too much hope into the military physical presence of American troops in Poland as a security guarantee against Putin, against Russia, and we do not take into account that this can change very quickly.'

Bednarska and her husband Bartek were among the Warsaw residents who said that Trump's invitations to Putin to visit America and rejoin the G8 are disconcerting.

She brought up Russia's annexation of the Donbas in Ukraine, and conflicts between Moscow and the European Union and Baltic counties, as reasons to keep Putin at arm's length.

'In, Poland, we are all concerned about whatever Russia is doing,' she said of Donbas. 'And states actually didn’t do anything about this situation. So yeah, we are concerned.'

She added, 'But unless he’s not going to harm European Union politics, and harm European countries, then the friendship is fine. As long as Trump is not going to compromise with the politics of Putin on our behalf, then I’m OK with that.'

Bartek Bednarska, 31, echoed his wife's sentiments about the expectations for Trump's visit, and her concerns about Putin's military aggression, while observing that the cancellation of Trump's trip could affect the outcome of Poland's parliamentary elections.

‘It clearly shows that America only thinks about their selves, and they don’t care about their allies. Especially that Donald Trump seems to be very good friend to the current president and government,' he said, 'and such cancellation of this trip can affect the election that will happen in October.’

Sunday morning as the WWII commemoration was taking place in Poland, the National Hurricane Center upgraded Dorian to a Category 5 storm, as it picked up speed and prepared to make landfall.

The previous afternoon, Trump received a hurricane briefing at Camp David, where he was spending the weekend. Video of him golfing at his Virginia golf course emerged, though, while he was known to be at Trump National Golf Club.

Mr. Bednarska noted that Barack Obama called off a 2010 trip to Poland for the funeral of former president, Lech Kaczynski, who died in a plane crash, after a volcanic eruption grounded flights, only to be caught playing golf over his weekend.

'So yes, it’s very disappointing, and it’s actually very good news for Russia and the countries that apparently do not support what is happening in countries in Poland,' he said of the perception that the United States doesn't care about democracies that broke away from the Eastern Bloc.

He said the West should not cozy up with leaders like Putin who occupy independent countries.

'So any discussion with Putin, unless he backs out of the Ukraine, is out of the question, in my opinion,' he said. 'And there should be a clear message, not only from Trump, but from other leaders, that what Russia is doing right now is not acceptable in Crimea.'

Putting the offense in historical context, he said, 'That is why we have, one of the reasons that we have, the Second World War.'