Former Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak might soon face charges over his sharing last September of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s contingency plan in the event of a Russian invasion. It allegedly called for the armed forces to retreat west of the Vistula River in order to buy time for NATO’s reinforcements to arrive. Blaszczak, who’s also the Vice-President of the Law & Justice (PiS) party, presented this as alleged proof that Tusk’s former government was in cahoots with Russia.
Poland’s Military Counterintelligence Service (SKW) just completed their investigation into that incident, however, and “established irregularities in the scope of improper handling of classified information, acting to the detriment of the interest of protecting classified information”. They accordingly just passed the information to prosecutors, who might soon charge him with related crimes under the penal code. This came shortly after the Sejm lifted his immunity due to an unrelated public slander case.
About that, Blaszczak claimed in May 2023 that the former Armed Forces Operational Commander failed to inform him of a Russian missile that violated their country’s airspace in December 2022, the account of which was rejected by the accused individual who then pressed charges. The larger context is that conservative-nationalist PiS and the now-ruling liberal–globalist Civic Coalition (KO) have tried to frame one another as Russian puppets. Readers can learn more about this from the following five briefings:
* 3 June 2023: “PiS Will Settle For Branding PO With A Scarlet Letter Instead Of Banning It From The Polls”
* 20 September 2023: “The Polish Defense Minister’s Claim About The Opposition’s Defense Policy Is Disingenuous”
* 14 May 2024: “Poland’s Former Government Allegedly Profited From Anti-Russian Propaganda In Corrupt Ways”
* 23 May 2024: “Poland’s New ‘Russian Influence Commission’ Aims To Influence The Next Presidential Election”
* 29 May 2024: “Sikorski Tried Justifying Poland’s ‘Russian Influence Commission’ On False Pretexts”
Each party’s “Russian influence commission” is a politicized witch hunt aimed at reshaping voters’ perceptions of their opponent and neither can objectively be described as “pro-Russian”. Tusk’s contingency plan actually made perfect military sense at the time as explained in the first analysis above, while the third reminds everyone of everything that PiS did against Russia while in power. Describing either of them as “pro-Russian” is self-discrediting and shows how vicious partisan politics has become.
Casual observers might naively assume that the SKW’s investigation in Blaszczak’s incident last September is above partisan concerns and an issue of national security, but that’s arguably a false impression considering Tusk’s persecution of other now-opposition members earlier this year. PiS believes that they’re being targeted for ideological reasons related to imposing a German-backed liberal-globalist dictatorship on Poland since they present themselves as the only party that can stop this plot.
Their claim is convincing since it’s more ludicrous for KO to smear them as “pro-Russian” than it is for PiS to smear Tusk’s former government as the same considering that the latter’s contingency plan could more easily be seen by some as proof of “Russian collusion” than the former’s more benign scandals. The reality is that it’s Germany which yields powerful behind-the-scenes influence over Poland, not Russia, though PiS was always too scared to seriously investigate this while Tusk is in cahoots with them.
