Today we review ‘20 Days in #Mariupol , #Moscow is struck overnight, and we visit a Ukrainian refugee center in #Poland.
It’s the screaming that gets me.
As a former #U.S. #Army combat medic, the blood and gore doesn’t affect me very much nowadays. I trained for that, studied it, and feel as comfortable as one can get, really, in its presence.
Dilemmas of populism in #Poland - PiS government wanted to distributed free laptops for school kids as part of their election campaign before 15 October voting and they were supposed to be engraved with patriotic symbols advertising PiS. Except they also planned to get a refund from EU grants, but everything purchased this way needs to have an EU sticker - or they won’t get the refund. So they’re now in conundrum because they will either advertise themselves and get no refund, or they will get refund but the message “EU paid for the laptops we’re giving away” isn’t exactly what testifies to their great generosity…
New video from @anderspuck about #Wagner forces in #Belarus & the chances they might attack #Poland & #HybridWar
And here I was half expecting a(nother) video from him about #Ukraine hitting the #Russia'n #Navy in the#BlackSea (again). Things are happening so fast #YouTube'rs can hardly keep up! 😄
#Poland PiS government declassified and published parts of 2011 Polish military doctrine, highlighting one fragment which planned retreat towards Vistula river and holding a defense line there.
The sole purpose of this publication was to bash PiS largest political opponent — PO, who was in power back then — and imply they would give up half of Poland instantly (the message is conveniently presented with limited details to prevent its verification).
And that's the essence of Polish politics unfortunately — bash your opponent at literally any cost, even if it involves revealing and misrepresenting state secrets, thus demolishing the very concept of state continuity and preservation of state policy regardless and above of tribal wars.
It's not the first time PiS did it — in 2006-2007 they published a massive "report on military intelligence", whom they accused of being "post-communist" and in the report they happily revealed plenty of operational details including sources of information. The report gained huge popularity in #Russia, not surprisingly, but also a lot of raised eyebrows on the stupidity of such transparency, which compromised Polish sources e.g. in Afghanistan.
This PiS publication also gained plenty of interest in Russia and Ukraine, with comments ridiculing "cowardice" of Polish army. The harm to the reputation of Polish command, Poland's defense forces and Polish state on its own is immense, but this has never stopped them before.
First exit poll results of Polish elections are available, and based on these it looks like PiS might not remain in power, which would be good news. Let's wait for official results though!
About 73% of eligible voters voted. That is massive and phenomenal. Probably best result in any elections in #Poland since 1989. 🎉
But two things I am mainly interested in are:
the result of Konfederacja, the far-right libertarians
how many people voted in the referendum part of this election cycle
#Zelensky gives a long, emotional answer to #Poland journalist Piotr Andrusieczko asking about #Ukraine’s relations with Poland since 2022. It’s long, multi-threaded and subtitles are in Polish so I’ll just summarise the main theses he’s making:
He wholeheartedly thanked Poles and Poland, especially president Duda, for “being with us from the beginning”, taking thousands of Ukrainians home etc.
He quotes Duda saying that “Ukrainians are standing for our [Poland’s] freedom”
He says Ukraine and himself personally had (and he highlights the past tense) absolutely fantastic relations with Polish government ministers and president Duda himself.
Then he starts a rather emotional tirade:
“And then was the blockade. Look, there’s no business at the war time, it’s about survival. We had no export corridor! And then the problems with our neighbours started: Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania.” *”And they told me: let’s agree on a compromise. I was asking: what is the compromise? That not of us will survive, that we don’t export all of the grain? And I said: okay, we won’t sell the grain into Poland, but let us just transit it abroad.”
Changing topic completely (I highlight that quote below for a reason):
Zelensky says that Ukrainians’ attitude towards Poles is so enthusiastic and loving, that “even as Ukrainians saw there’s a conflict among the governments, they were defending Poles! Not myself, even thought I was defending their interests!”
He returns to business talk:
“From April to September Ukraine lost hundreds of millions of dollars, lost part of its harvest.” Then he says Ukrainian farmers were asking him how they can farm anything if their fields are mined, but they need to export anything to keep their business going. And that’s when the political relations started to degrade.
Once again he highlights he’s very grateful to the Polish nation but, he says, “I’m not some kind of pennant in the wind, I’m defending the interests of my country at war time!”
He says he simply asked Poles to let them export the grain, but they didn’t agree - and that’s not fair.
Zelensky then presents his interpretation of the change in policy:
“I’m sure it was a political decision of a government who felt it’s losing. I told them: you will lose on this policy, you will lose with your own people. Because people are suffering, and it’s not only about money. You say: compromise. But there’s law. All EU was against the blockade.”
He thanks Romania and president Johannis for helping them at that moment. He says Johannis presented himself as a “strong leader” who at the moment of difficulty, facing similar protests, said “first values, then prices” (in Ukrainian it’s “tsinnosti” and “tsiny” respectably, so it sounds much more proverbial)
Then he says Poland lost a lot due to halted exports and hopes for improvement of the relations in future.
#Poland truckers blockade of border crossings with #Ukraine is a complex issue in which I have an impression none of the parties involved say the whole truth. The protests were recently joined by transport companies from Slovakia and Hungary.^1 And then they were joined by Polish farmers, who in summer protested against sales of Ukrainian grain in Poland.
Poland truckers demands boil down to restoring system of licenses for Ukrainian transport companies to operate in EU or at least enforcing the existing rules.^2 Currently, as I understand, according to European Commission the licenses for Ukrainian transport companies were removed in the EU-Ukraine association agreement.^1 But the liberalisation had several important limitations, most importantly Ukrainian companies cannot legally move loads between EU countries.^2 Which, Polish truckers argue, they do all the time, ignoring all existing certifications and licenses, which are enforced on Polish companies. And because neither Ukrainians salaries nor technical standards need to satisfy the same EU requirements as Poles, they are much cheaper and as result they took away a lion share in the transports inside EU. In addition, Ukrainian ministry of transport did not mutually liberalise access of EU truckers to Ukrainian market.^2
I checked some #UkraineRadio NV interviews about the protests, but they’re disappointingly shallow. They say the protest is driven by a “tiny organisation with ties to Russia”, but it’s not - it’s organised by ZMPD, one of the Poland’s largest.^3 They admit Polish truckers are refused access to Ukrainian online system and harassed by road police, and they don’t really refer to the core issues by Poles. At the same time another article calls the Polish truckers “far right”, illustrating this with a post by their spokesman Rafał Mekler who explains the core issues in quite a detail, which is entirely skipped in Ukrainian article. Of course, Mekler also makes a few racist allusions towards Ukraine’s minister of transport who was allegedly born in Kabul.^4
All that is really sad and disappointing, granted that it not only stops strategic goods flowing to Ukraine right now, but also undermines the future cooperation with Ukraine in EU.
Khrystyna and Svitlana were singing in the street in Zaporizhzhia an hour before a Russian missile strike on the city, and this video of them was filmed.
One of them died yesterday at the site of the strike. She was 19 years old. The other girl died in the ICU today. She was 21.
I had not heard anything about #Poland shifting in a positive direction, yet it sounds like it's happening today!
Sounds like a populist/nationalist government has been defeated. This should be more prominent news – we only seem to hear the ones sadly going the other way.
Ugh. HR requests a permanent stay permit (for being a foreigner in #Poland) from me. I already gave them what I have (my permanent residence card). Which is my permit as far as I know and according to what I can find online.
I mean it literally says it's proof of my right for a permanent stay on it.
So now I am trying to figure out if they are mistaken, or if I am and I am missing some important document which no other workplace has requested from me in the last ten years.
GOOD NEWS ALERT!
The people of Poland have voted for democracy. The opposition has won a majority of seats and the authoritarian PiS is defeated.
The main factor was huge turnout.
Voting matters. #Solidarity#Poland#Democracy#ResistFascism ✊🇵🇱 🇪🇺
BBC Radio 4 is broadcasting an account of the archive that secretly recorded daily Jewish existence in the Warsaw Ghetto called "The Warsaw Ghetto: History as Survival". It's on at 13:45 (GMT) each day this week. Narration by Anton Lesser with Elliot Levey.
Wondering why so small? Poland seriously considers retrofitting its existing thermal power plants running on coal with small nuclear reactors, thus preserving all the existing generation, heating and distribution infrastructure, minus coal. 30 MW sounds like perfect replacement for the existing coal reactors.
Additionally, a number of chemical plants consider obtaining power and heating (hot steam) from nuclear power, and this design seems to respond to this demand perfectly. It's also very safe.
> The conceptual design of a new Polish high-temperature research reactor, developed by the National Centre for Nuclear Research (NCBJ), has been unveiled. Developed with input from Japan, the reactor could be built in Poland at the NCBJ.
> The helium-cooled reactor - measuring 12.3 metres in height and with a diameter of 4.1 metres - will provide 30 MW of thermal power. It will feature a prismatic-type core consisting of hexagonal blocks. Moderated with graphite, the reactor will use TRISO-type fuel with 8-12% enrichment. The primary forced circulation helium cooling circuit will operate at a pressure of 6 MPa. The helium temperature at the reactor outlet will be 750°C, at the inlet 325°C. The reactor will feature passive and active safety systems, with a planned lifetime of 60 years.
A new road bridge got opened in December in a small town somewhere in Poland. For six months it was being used by regular traffic.
Elections are coming, though, so the Polish PM decided he needs to officially open it, with media present and all. And so, we get to behold this absolute gem — an announcement from the local municipality saying that:
> On May 18th, 2023, between 10:00 and 19:00, the bridge in [location] will be closed due to its opening.
Regarding #Poland, before opening champagne, please just remember that PSL — part of the Third Way — was always a balancing party, which entered coalitions with everyone who offered a good deal. With 50 estimated mandates in Sejm for Third Way and 200 for PiS, this makes them a very attractive partner for a coalition to get 230 votes for absolute majority. Now it very much depends who actually got these votes, PSL or Polska 2050. It's not.that I want to spoil your Sunday evening, I've just seen PSL in elections for the last 30 years 😒
Polish hackers figured out that a train manufacturer had programmed its trains to break down after certain dates, or if they were serviced at another company's workshop.
Donald Tusk set to become Polish prime minister (www.bbc.com)
Mr Tusk's coalition won the elections in October but had not been able to take office until now.