9 ms·

‘I want to protect my family’: Polish civilians flock to army training

69 points by chewz 4y ago

exabrial 4y ago
Watching Russian convoys sport the Soviet flag pretty much signals their intention: roll into all of the old warsaw pact countries. Poland has absolutely 0 natural geographical barriers.
- chewz 4y ago
  > Poland has absolutely 0 natural geographical barriers. Except for Baltic Sea to the North, Mountains to the South, Oder River to the West and Bug River to the East... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Poland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Poland
  - mantas 4y ago
    Neither the sea nor mountains work from Kaliningrad. The border with Belarus is pretty good terrain with a fair amount of roads too.
    - chewz 4y ago
      Kalinigrad and Central Poland are separated by maze of lakes, forrest and marshes 100 km in-depth...Not exactly a tank country - Masuria had always been considered a major strategic obstacle.. Same goes for Polish-Byelorussia border - large forrests, rolling hills... Each Russian staff officer worth his salt knows details of this terrain from studying history - 1793, 1809, 1831, 1914, 1920, 1941, 1944... And impassable has different definition in XXI century then in 1812... But still...it is a terrain well suited for defense...
      - mantas 4y ago
        Situation is somewhat similar here in Lithuania. Unfortunately what I learned studying our post-WW2 resistance, it's not as obstacle as it was back then. Melioration is probably #1. Marshes are anti-tank canals, with bridges supporting tractors and trucks. Then greatly improved road network. Especially access roads for farms, forest service and so on. Impenetrable marshes and forests of 1940s where some cells held out for a decade are now zig-zagged with roads that support trucks overloaded with timber. Farms have fascinating access roads too. And Polish farms seem to have even better access roads, at least what I saw while cycling down there. Sure, it's not flatland where you can roll by tanks anywhere. But so was Ukraine in february when fields were sinkholes. And it's nowhere close to proper mountains. Or marshes of 100 years ago.
        chewz 4y ago
        I have read in Northern Crusades [1] that in XII/XIII century forrests separating Prussia from Lithuania/Mazovia had been truly impassable (except for raiding parties - raizes) and the only campaining had been possible along large rivers. Lituanians had it easier because they had been bringing siedge equipment and canons downstream. So there is some change although meassured in centuries :) [1] https://www.amazon.com/Northern-Crusades-Second-Eric-Christiansen/dp/0140266534 https://www.amazon.com/Northern-Crusades-Second-Eric-Christi...
        mantas 4y ago
        Yes. But the huuuuge forests of XII century were converted into arable land in Commonwealth times. Export timber, then grow grain in place of the old forest and export it... And then unexpected partition happens and you can't hide in the forest anymore :/
- UltraViolence 4y ago
  That's a ludicrous statement. Putin clearly stated he has no such intentions and even if he had the poor performance of his armed forces will make him think twice before attacking NATO countries. After the Cold War the U.S. searched the Soviet archives for evidence of plans to attack NATO, but all these turned up nothing. The Soviet Union never had the intention to attack Western Europe and all their posturing was merely to make us believe they were stronger than they actually were. Yes, they'd won the Second World War, but only at enormous human cost. For every German soldier killed at least 5 Soviet soldiers lost their lives.
  - kibwen 4y ago
    > Putin clearly stated he has no such intentions If Putin told me the sky was blue, I'd go outside and check. To describe Putin's relationship with the truth as "tenuous" would be far more generous than he deserves.
    - UltraViolence 4y ago
      For all his faults and crimes I do believe he's sincere on this. He merely wants us to keep out of "his" backyard. Read: former Soviet states are off-limits for NATO and EU membership. We've been provoking him by offering (and sometimes even bribing and prodding) former Soviet states to become NATO members. I'm no Putin fan, but I do believe he has a point here.
      - luckylion 4y ago
        But accepting that would just mean that e.g. Poland couldn't join the EU and would have to remain, even forced by the West to not make Putin sad, a Russian vassal state. Who can accept such a world order, where a tier 2 power holds everyone hostage and demands to be treated as an empire? Imagine if the British expected to still control all of the empire they once had and demanded the US, Russia and China stop India from going its own way.
        UltraViolence 4y ago
- lancelot-ru 4y ago
- paganel 4y ago
  > Watching Russian convoys sport the Soviet flag pretty much signals their intention: It was this flag [1], not any Soviet flag. Which, in this context, makes a lot of sense, as the current government in Ukraine tries to extricate itself as much as possible from them actually having been on the good side during WW2 (with the well-known exceptions), i.e. on Russia's side . I used to know a person closed to me who had fought on the wrong side, around the same parts where this war now takes place (Odessa, Crimea, all the way to the Don river), so I'm not commenting about this from half a world away. And no, it was not "obvious" that that was Russia's intention. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_Banner_(Soviet_Union) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_Banner_(Soviet_Union)
  - kibwen 4y ago
    > the good side during WW2, i.e. on Russia's side (with the well-known exceptions) There are some pretty fucking big exceptions there, my friend. The USSR was perfectly content to cooperate with Nazi Germany for their own benefit until they got backstabbed.
    - helij 4y ago
      You don't know history [0][1]. Stalin was absolutely not content to cooperate with Nazi Germany as Stalin offered 1M soldiers to be sent to border with Germany if France and Britain agreed on anti-Nazi alliance. They didn't even respond. Unfortunately this only came out in 2000' when classified documents came out and Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact is the only thing people remember. Time to update your knowledge. Of course British and French were wary of communist Soviet Union but Stalin did offer it to Allies first. That's a historical fact. Once they didn't respond he tried to prevent and postpone the war with Germany with a well known Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact because documents also show that Stalin was perfectly aware that Germans will attack no matter what. The above doesn't negate Stalin's imperialistic ambitions towards Poland. [0]https://www.wsj.com/articles/stalin-first-tried-to-resist-hitler-with-great-britain-11589838192 https://www.wsj.com/articles/stalin-first-tried-to-resist-hi... [1]https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/3223834/Stalin-planned-to-send-a-million-troops-to-stop-Hitler-if-Britain-and-France-agreed-pact.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/322...
- lamontcg 4y ago
  Well Putin can't manage to cross the Dnipro, so I don't think Poland needs to worry too much unless he starts to pop off nukes.
nxm 4y ago
Non-paywall link available?
- yakubin 4y ago
  https://archive.ph/uZa0n https://archive.ph/uZa0n
- ziomek77 4y ago
  https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcontent%2Fbbce0959-f65e-44a4-87c1-438bddcfbd10 https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcontent%2...
pokepim 4y ago
Not common among white collar friends. Many people I talked with are more likely to run than defend the country which day by day is ruined by conservative and corrupted politicians
- gwnywg 4y ago
  I guess people learn from history, and Polish history teaches sad lesson that Poland seems to be a good candidate for another WWII experience where there are no victorious... To Polish politicians I would have one thing to say, send your kids to fight and do not push whole country to the war nobody wants.
  - ergo14 4y ago
    No one pushes for anything agressive in Poland - the only narrative is that we and baltics should be ready to defend ourselves.
- adaml_623 4y ago
  Run where?
- nadieyninguno1 4y ago
  So your white collar friends are going to sit and enjoy life while the good times roll but flee the second hard times come? If I had a friend that only came over for a BBQ and couldn't be bothered to help me in a time of need, that isn't a friend... Sounds like there are deeper issues than "conservative" politics in the nation.
  - 5e92cb50239222b 4y ago
    Not having any relation to Poland, I perfectly understand them. You only get one life, and many of us have other priorities (like their family's well-being) other than being torn to pieces under artillery fire because the corrupted politicians preferred to look the other way and feed the monster, while ignoring so many omens over the past 20+ years.
bell-cot 4y ago
Summary: It was just a 1-day "training" session, for a very small number of civilians. In context - obviously a PR exercise / trial balloon / warm-up for larger & more serious things. (Poland's government is, ah, kinda obviously scrambling to improve the country's capacity for self-defense.)
- baybal2 4y ago
  The important aspect here is that it previously criticised for shifting resources from a career military. A 300k active service military would be of course nothing to scoff at, especially with a lot of long range weapons. But what we see in Ukraine is they had biggest army in Europe, and they also wanted to go mostly professional, but their core force, the most well trained soldier took an enormous hit, and is melting away. Soldiers whom they spent years preparing are still humans, and are dying to artillery, air strikes, and zerg rushes of Russian "disposables" (draftees, Wanger mercenaries, and LPR/DPR levy.) These highly trained soldiers are not trading their lives meaningfully when they sit in trenches, and can't attack because the frontline is so stretched out, and manpower is drained for menial tasks. This is all shows that you can't fight something like Russia with professional army only if you are a country of only 44m people. A degree of differentiation in between career warriors who will spend a decade or more in the military vs. somebody who will go for a 2-3 year contract, and reservists with minimal training is absolutely essential. Israel maintains a 1 to 3 split in between professional soldiers, and the good part of their reserve (people who regularly train, fit, and had good scores in tests.) The ratio is way bigger on the paper though.
  - ktrzanx 4y ago
    It is reasonable to have a draft for self-defense (like Israel). We now see that Russia has difficulties getting draftees to fight abroad, so it is hard to imagine that Poland is at any particular risk right now.
    - SassyThrowaway 4y ago
      What sort of difficulties those might be? If Russia overcomes those difficulties, should Poland get worried?
lizardactivist 4y ago
From what? Russia is not planning to invade the EU.
- fazfq 4y ago
  Whoa did you just deny a CIA narrative?
  - lizardactivist 4y ago
    I'm daring like that.
- gwnywg 4y ago
  It depends which corridor you are standing, there are many who believe Russia is about to send their troops to invade Poland. Reality to many is still what is told on TV, and TV in Poland is far from being objective or promoting proper public debate, they instead push narratives that increase emotions..
  - akudha 4y ago
    they instead push narratives that increase emotions Isn’t this the default mode of operation for the media? Are there any countries (Nordic?) where most of the media isn’t corrupt, fear mongering, clickbaity etc?
  - mistrial9 4y ago
    "Push narratives that increase emotions" instead of "objective or promoting proper public debate" this is absolutely what I see in the USA .. all year
- luckylion 4y ago
  At least officially. But then again, they officially also didn't plan to conquer Kiev or exterminate Ukrainians. There's a reason why Russia's neighbors are suddenly eager to join NATO or increase military readiness.
rchaud 4y ago
Is it possible to get a "[Paywall]" indicator on links in HN? FT is merciless, everything seems to be behind the paywall.
- rajman187 4y ago
  One way I found I could read FT was to search the article name in Google and the link actually takes you to the full article. Not sure if a bug or feature that works for everyone though
  - rchaud 4y ago
    It is a feature, WSJ used to do this for a while. At one point, the article links they posted on Facebook would also be paywall-free.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
beaylott1986 4y ago
What scenario are they training for exactly? Highly unlikely Russian/Belarus army would be able to get anywhere near Polish border let alone cross it. And if nuclear war is their concern how is such training going to help? Their concern is understandable given history but very misplaced. And their nationalist politicians benefit greatly from rallying around the flag (much like Russia hmm).
- julienreszka 4y ago
  Poland borders Russia and Belarus so I don't really see the point you are trying to make. Si vis pacem, para bellum.
  - _-david-_ 4y ago
    If Russia was going to invade another country he would presumably not choose one that is in NATO.
    - julienreszka 4y ago
      It's not in the realm of impossible. NATO isn't invincible and history shows that alliances break apart.
      - _-david-_ 4y ago
        I'm not suggesting that NATO will always exist. I am just saying if Putin was going to attack a country he likely wouldn't go after a country that has the most powerful military alliance backing it. There are other countries that don't have that sort of backing. I don't think Putin believed the west would support Ukraine which is why he chose it.
    - macintux 4y ago
      I firmly believe that, had Ukraine collapsed within days of the invasion as Russia expected, they’d be in a NATO country by now. I think Putin expected NATO to turn out to be a paper tiger when it came to the Baltics, at least. Given the reports that Trump planned to drop out of NATO in his second term, and given the ongoing tensions within Europe, it’s not unreasonable to think Russia could get away with gradual encroachment.

69 points by chewz 4y ago

Watching Russian convoys sport the Soviet flag pretty much signals their intention: roll into all of the old warsaw pact countries. Poland has absolutely 0 natural geographical barriers.

chewz 4y ago
> Poland has absolutely 0 natural geographical barriers. Except for Baltic Sea to the North, Mountains to the South, Oder River to the West and Bug River to the East... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Poland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Poland
- mantas 4y ago
  Neither the sea nor mountains work from Kaliningrad. The border with Belarus is pretty good terrain with a fair amount of roads too.
  - chewz 4y ago
    Kalinigrad and Central Poland are separated by maze of lakes, forrest and marshes 100 km in-depth...Not exactly a tank country - Masuria had always been considered a major strategic obstacle.. Same goes for Polish-Byelorussia border - large forrests, rolling hills... Each Russian staff officer worth his salt knows details of this terrain from studying history - 1793, 1809, 1831, 1914, 1920, 1941, 1944... And impassable has different definition in XXI century then in 1812... But still...it is a terrain well suited for defense...
    - mantas 4y ago
      Situation is somewhat similar here in Lithuania. Unfortunately what I learned studying our post-WW2 resistance, it's not as obstacle as it was back then. Melioration is probably #1. Marshes are anti-tank canals, with bridges supporting tractors and trucks. Then greatly improved road network. Especially access roads for farms, forest service and so on. Impenetrable marshes and forests of 1940s where some cells held out for a decade are now zig-zagged with roads that support trucks overloaded with timber. Farms have fascinating access roads too. And Polish farms seem to have even better access roads, at least what I saw while cycling down there. Sure, it's not flatland where you can roll by tanks anywhere. But so was Ukraine in february when fields were sinkholes. And it's nowhere close to proper mountains. Or marshes of 100 years ago.
      - chewz 4y ago
        I have read in Northern Crusades [1] that in XII/XIII century forrests separating Prussia from Lithuania/Mazovia had been truly impassable (except for raiding parties - raizes) and the only campaining had been possible along large rivers. Lituanians had it easier because they had been bringing siedge equipment and canons downstream. So there is some change although meassured in centuries :) [1] https://www.amazon.com/Northern-Crusades-Second-Eric-Christiansen/dp/0140266534 https://www.amazon.com/Northern-Crusades-Second-Eric-Christi...
        mantas 4y ago
        Yes. But the huuuuge forests of XII century were converted into arable land in Commonwealth times. Export timber, then grow grain in place of the old forest and export it... And then unexpected partition happens and you can't hide in the forest anymore :/
UltraViolence 4y ago
That's a ludicrous statement. Putin clearly stated he has no such intentions and even if he had the poor performance of his armed forces will make him think twice before attacking NATO countries. After the Cold War the U.S. searched the Soviet archives for evidence of plans to attack NATO, but all these turned up nothing. The Soviet Union never had the intention to attack Western Europe and all their posturing was merely to make us believe they were stronger than they actually were. Yes, they'd won the Second World War, but only at enormous human cost. For every German soldier killed at least 5 Soviet soldiers lost their lives.
- kibwen 4y ago
  > Putin clearly stated he has no such intentions If Putin told me the sky was blue, I'd go outside and check. To describe Putin's relationship with the truth as "tenuous" would be far more generous than he deserves.
  - UltraViolence 4y ago
    For all his faults and crimes I do believe he's sincere on this. He merely wants us to keep out of "his" backyard. Read: former Soviet states are off-limits for NATO and EU membership. We've been provoking him by offering (and sometimes even bribing and prodding) former Soviet states to become NATO members. I'm no Putin fan, but I do believe he has a point here.
    - luckylion 4y ago
      But accepting that would just mean that e.g. Poland couldn't join the EU and would have to remain, even forced by the West to not make Putin sad, a Russian vassal state. Who can accept such a world order, where a tier 2 power holds everyone hostage and demands to be treated as an empire? Imagine if the British expected to still control all of the empire they once had and demanded the US, Russia and China stop India from going its own way.
      - UltraViolence 4y ago
lancelot-ru 4y ago
paganel 4y ago
> Watching Russian convoys sport the Soviet flag pretty much signals their intention: It was this flag [1], not any Soviet flag. Which, in this context, makes a lot of sense, as the current government in Ukraine tries to extricate itself as much as possible from them actually having been on the good side during WW2 (with the well-known exceptions), i.e. on Russia's side . I used to know a person closed to me who had fought on the wrong side, around the same parts where this war now takes place (Odessa, Crimea, all the way to the Don river), so I'm not commenting about this from half a world away. And no, it was not "obvious" that that was Russia's intention. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_Banner_(Soviet_Union) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_Banner_(Soviet_Union)
- kibwen 4y ago
  > the good side during WW2, i.e. on Russia's side (with the well-known exceptions) There are some pretty fucking big exceptions there, my friend. The USSR was perfectly content to cooperate with Nazi Germany for their own benefit until they got backstabbed.
  - helij 4y ago
    You don't know history [0][1]. Stalin was absolutely not content to cooperate with Nazi Germany as Stalin offered 1M soldiers to be sent to border with Germany if France and Britain agreed on anti-Nazi alliance. They didn't even respond. Unfortunately this only came out in 2000' when classified documents came out and Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact is the only thing people remember. Time to update your knowledge. Of course British and French were wary of communist Soviet Union but Stalin did offer it to Allies first. That's a historical fact. Once they didn't respond he tried to prevent and postpone the war with Germany with a well known Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact because documents also show that Stalin was perfectly aware that Germans will attack no matter what. The above doesn't negate Stalin's imperialistic ambitions towards Poland. [0]https://www.wsj.com/articles/stalin-first-tried-to-resist-hitler-with-great-britain-11589838192 https://www.wsj.com/articles/stalin-first-tried-to-resist-hi... [1]https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/3223834/Stalin-planned-to-send-a-million-troops-to-stop-Hitler-if-Britain-and-France-agreed-pact.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/322...
lamontcg 4y ago
Well Putin can't manage to cross the Dnipro, so I don't think Poland needs to worry too much unless he starts to pop off nukes.

nxm 4y ago

Non-paywall link available?

yakubin 4y ago
https://archive.ph/uZa0n https://archive.ph/uZa0n
ziomek77 4y ago
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcontent%2Fbbce0959-f65e-44a4-87c1-438bddcfbd10 https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcontent%2...

pokepim 4y ago

Not common among white collar friends. Many people I talked with are more likely to run than defend the country which day by day is ruined by conservative and corrupted politicians

gwnywg 4y ago
I guess people learn from history, and Polish history teaches sad lesson that Poland seems to be a good candidate for another WWII experience where there are no victorious... To Polish politicians I would have one thing to say, send your kids to fight and do not push whole country to the war nobody wants.
- ergo14 4y ago
  No one pushes for anything agressive in Poland - the only narrative is that we and baltics should be ready to defend ourselves.
adaml_623 4y ago
Run where?
nadieyninguno1 4y ago
So your white collar friends are going to sit and enjoy life while the good times roll but flee the second hard times come? If I had a friend that only came over for a BBQ and couldn't be bothered to help me in a time of need, that isn't a friend... Sounds like there are deeper issues than "conservative" politics in the nation.
- 5e92cb50239222b 4y ago
  Not having any relation to Poland, I perfectly understand them. You only get one life, and many of us have other priorities (like their family's well-being) other than being torn to pieces under artillery fire because the corrupted politicians preferred to look the other way and feed the monster, while ignoring so many omens over the past 20+ years.

bell-cot 4y ago

Summary: It was just a 1-day "training" session, for a very small number of civilians. In context - obviously a PR exercise / trial balloon / warm-up for larger & more serious things. (Poland's government is, ah, kinda obviously scrambling to improve the country's capacity for self-defense.)

baybal2 4y ago
The important aspect here is that it previously criticised for shifting resources from a career military. A 300k active service military would be of course nothing to scoff at, especially with a lot of long range weapons. But what we see in Ukraine is they had biggest army in Europe, and they also wanted to go mostly professional, but their core force, the most well trained soldier took an enormous hit, and is melting away. Soldiers whom they spent years preparing are still humans, and are dying to artillery, air strikes, and zerg rushes of Russian "disposables" (draftees, Wanger mercenaries, and LPR/DPR levy.) These highly trained soldiers are not trading their lives meaningfully when they sit in trenches, and can't attack because the frontline is so stretched out, and manpower is drained for menial tasks. This is all shows that you can't fight something like Russia with professional army only if you are a country of only 44m people. A degree of differentiation in between career warriors who will spend a decade or more in the military vs. somebody who will go for a 2-3 year contract, and reservists with minimal training is absolutely essential. Israel maintains a 1 to 3 split in between professional soldiers, and the good part of their reserve (people who regularly train, fit, and had good scores in tests.) The ratio is way bigger on the paper though.
- ktrzanx 4y ago
  It is reasonable to have a draft for self-defense (like Israel). We now see that Russia has difficulties getting draftees to fight abroad, so it is hard to imagine that Poland is at any particular risk right now.
  - SassyThrowaway 4y ago
    What sort of difficulties those might be? If Russia overcomes those difficulties, should Poland get worried?

lizardactivist 4y ago

From what? Russia is not planning to invade the EU.

fazfq 4y ago
Whoa did you just deny a CIA narrative?
- lizardactivist 4y ago
  I'm daring like that.
gwnywg 4y ago
It depends which corridor you are standing, there are many who believe Russia is about to send their troops to invade Poland. Reality to many is still what is told on TV, and TV in Poland is far from being objective or promoting proper public debate, they instead push narratives that increase emotions..
- akudha 4y ago
  they instead push narratives that increase emotions Isn’t this the default mode of operation for the media? Are there any countries (Nordic?) where most of the media isn’t corrupt, fear mongering, clickbaity etc?
- mistrial9 4y ago
  "Push narratives that increase emotions" instead of "objective or promoting proper public debate" this is absolutely what I see in the USA .. all year
luckylion 4y ago
At least officially. But then again, they officially also didn't plan to conquer Kiev or exterminate Ukrainians. There's a reason why Russia's neighbors are suddenly eager to join NATO or increase military readiness.

rchaud 4y ago

Is it possible to get a "[Paywall]" indicator on links in HN? FT is merciless, everything seems to be behind the paywall.

rajman187 4y ago
One way I found I could read FT was to search the article name in Google and the link actually takes you to the full article. Not sure if a bug or feature that works for everyone though
- rchaud 4y ago
  It is a feature, WSJ used to do this for a while. At one point, the article links they posted on Facebook would also be paywall-free.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

beaylott1986 4y ago

What scenario are they training for exactly? Highly unlikely Russian/Belarus army would be able to get anywhere near Polish border let alone cross it. And if nuclear war is their concern how is such training going to help? Their concern is understandable given history but very misplaced. And their nationalist politicians benefit greatly from rallying around the flag (much like Russia hmm).

julienreszka 4y ago
Poland borders Russia and Belarus so I don't really see the point you are trying to make. Si vis pacem, para bellum.
- _-david-_ 4y ago
  If Russia was going to invade another country he would presumably not choose one that is in NATO.
  - julienreszka 4y ago
    It's not in the realm of impossible. NATO isn't invincible and history shows that alliances break apart.
    - _-david-_ 4y ago
      I'm not suggesting that NATO will always exist. I am just saying if Putin was going to attack a country he likely wouldn't go after a country that has the most powerful military alliance backing it. There are other countries that don't have that sort of backing. I don't think Putin believed the west would support Ukraine which is why he chose it.
  - macintux 4y ago
    I firmly believe that, had Ukraine collapsed within days of the invasion as Russia expected, they’d be in a NATO country by now. I think Putin expected NATO to turn out to be a paper tiger when it came to the Baltics, at least. Given the reports that Trump planned to drop out of NATO in his second term, and given the ongoing tensions within Europe, it’s not unreasonable to think Russia could get away with gradual encroachment.