Polish army chief: 'Prepare Poles for total war'

Polish army chief: 'Prepare Poles for total war'

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"Poland must prepare its soldiers for a total conflict," the chief of staff of its armed forces said dramatically, as the country boosts the number of troops on its borders with Russia and Belarus.

Poland's relations with Russia and its ally Belarus have deteriorated sharply since 2022 and the events in Ukraine.

Since then it seems that NATO is preparing (mainly with continuous armaments) Poland to play the role of the "next Ukraine", throwing it into the battle against Russia.

"Today we have to prepare our forces for a full-scale conflict, not an asymmetric type conflict," Chief of Staff General Wislau Kukula said during a press conference.

"This forces us to find a good balance between the border mission and maintaining the intensity of training in the military ," he said.

In May, Poland announced details of "Eastern Shield," a 10 billion zloty ($2.5 billion) program to bolster defenses along its borders with Belarus and Russia, which it plans to complete by in 2028.

Kukula also stated that the current high interest of applicants to join the military poses a dilemma as to whether more recruits should be hired than budgeted at the expense of the procurement of military equipment, especially as, he said, interest is expected to start to decline sharply from 2027.

After the Zelenskiy-Tusk agreement on an anti-aircraft shield in Western Ukraine, a second point of the security agreement comes to complement the "invasion plan of Polish and NATO forces" in the long-suffering country.

Kiev wants to persuade Ukrainians of fighting age living in other European countries to join the armed forces by creating a new unit, the "Ukrainian League", which will be based and trained in Poland, the defense ministry said.

It is a "special volunteer unit that will be trained on Polish soil" and "will be equipped with the best weapons" of the West before being deployed to the Ukrainian front, Umerov said.

"We invite all Ukrainians who are in Europe to join the Ukrainian League ," he said, without giving details of the number of men Kiev hopes to recruit.

This is where legal and substantive issues arise. Who will certify that these are actually Ukrainians living in Poland?