Poland preparing army for a 'bloody and long war'

(Patria) - The Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Army, General Wiesław Kukuła, stated that in the next two to three years, his country will reform and strengthen its army to be ready for a "bloody and long war", and that active reservists will be trained and equipped like professional soldiers.

- Today, we are convinced that any war would be long, bloody, and most professional soldiers would not last until the end. Reservists will be the main force there, and they will finish the war.

We need to change our mindset so that reservists join the armed forces in numbers, are equipped like professional soldiers, and trained in the same courses," said Kukuła.

In reforming the army, Polish generals look to Finland's model as an example, where the armed forces have only 31,500 professional soldiers, but their ranks can be filled at any time by 280,000 well-trained reservists.

Poland plans to strengthen its army to 300,000 soldiers, including professional soldiers, Poles who have voluntarily served their military term and the Territorial Defense Army, as well as active reservists, of whom there should be 150,000 by 2039.

- Voluntary military service and territorial defense have proven to be successful, not because they were brilliantly 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 - said the Chief of the General Staff.

Poland began to rapidly modernize its army even before Russia's attack on Ukraine, and the new pro-European government, which has committed to allocating four percent of GDP annually for defense, the highest in NATO, continues its arms procurement.

- Can you guarantee me that Putin will not attack any NATO country? - asked the head of Polish diplomacy Radosław Sikorski a journalist in an interview for the new issue of the German newspaper Bild.

Sikorski says that, given how many times Russia has attacked Poland throughout history, Poles would not be surprised by an attack now, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin, if he reached Poland's borders, would do the same as Hitler did with Czechoslovakia before World War II.