In May 1980, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent Western boycott of the Soviet Union, Gierek arranged a meeting between Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and Leonid Brezhnev in Warsaw. As was the case with Władysław Gomułka a decade earlier, a foreign policy success created an illusion that the Polish party leader was secure in his statesman aura, while the paramount political facts were being determined by the deteriorating economic situation and the resultant labor unrest. In July Gierek went to the Crimea, his usual vacation spot. For the last time he talked there with his friend Brezhnev. He responded to Brezhnev's gloomy assessment of the situation in Poland (including the out-of-control indebtedness) with his own upbeat predictions, possibly not fully cognizant of the country's, and his own, predicament.