Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Army, General Wieslaw Kukula, said that over the next two to three years, his country would reform and strengthen its army so that it would be ready for a "bloody and long war", and that active reservists would be trained and equipped as professional soldiers.
"Today, we are convinced that a possible war would be long and bloody, and most professional soldiers would not last until the end. The reservists will be the main ones and they will end the war. We have to change the way of thinking so that the reservists enter the armed forces in numbers, to be equipped as professional soldiers and trained on the same courses," General Kukula told Polish Public Radio.
Polish generals in the reform of the army take as an example to respect the model of Finland, where the armed forces have only 31.500 professional soldiers, but at any moment their ranks can be filled by 280.000 well-trained reservists.
Poland plans to strengthen the army to 300.000 soldiers, among whom will be professional soldiers, then Poles who voluntarily served their military service and the Territorial Defense Army, and in addition active reservists, which should number 2039 by 150.000.
"Voluntary military service and territorial defense proved to be a success, not because they were ingeniously conceived, but because we simply hit the expectations in society. A large part of our society wants to be ready and learn to fight professionally," he said. Chief of the General Staff.
Poland began to rapidly modernize the army even before Russia's attack on Ukraine, and the new pro-European government, which has undertaken to allocate four percent of GDP per year for defense, continues to purchase weapons, which is the highest in NATO.
The fear that there are no guarantees that Russia would stop if it defeated Ukraine and that Poland would not be the next target, until at least Moscow regains its sphere of influence from the time of the Cold War, is publicly expressed by both officials and the opposition.
"Can you guarantee me that Putin will not attack any NATO country," Polish Foreign Minister Radoslav Šikorski asked a journalist in an interview for the new issue of the German newspaper Bild.
He stated that "considering how many times in history Russia has attacked Poland", the Poles would not be surprised by an attack even now, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin, if he reached the borders of Poland, would do the same as Hitler before the Second world war with the Czech Republic.
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