POLAND: Clashes in a Rap Concert & more – 14th Aug 2025

Witam from BA! This is the Rorshok Poland Update from the 14th of August twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Poland.

Let’s start off with upcoming projects. On Thursday, the 7th, Karol Nawrocki, Poland’s new president, revealed his first big plan to speed up the Central Transport Hub and its high-speed rail links.

On his first trip around the country, he stopped in Kalisz, central Poland, and said the new project, set to finish by twenty thirty-two, should be green, benefit every region, and make Poland a major European transport hub.

Krystian Kinastowski, Kalisz’s mayor, liked the plan but criticized recent government changes that would send fast trains around the city instead of stopping there. The government says the bypass would cause less disruption, but locals say it would hurt the city’s growth, cut businesses and investments, and force forty families to move since the new tracks would go right through their homes.

On Saturday, the 9th, chaos broke out during the concert of Max Korzh, a Belarusian rapper, at Warsaw’s National Stadium.

Some ticketless fans tried to get closer to the stage and clashed with security, and some waved flags linked to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, known for WWII crimes against Poles, which made the situation even more tense.

Police stepped in and detained 125 people for things like drug possession, attacking security, bringing fireworks, and sneaking into the venue. They also issued ninety-nine fines totaling 22,000 zloty, which is about 6,000 dollars, and sent thirty-nine cases to court.

Soon after, PM Tusk said authorities would quickly deport sixty-three people involved—fifty-seven Ukrainians and six Belarusians—and warned that the whole incident seemed tied to Russian efforts to stir up conflict between Poles and Ukrainians.

Since we mentioned Russia, on Thursday, the 7th, Stanisław Czosnek, Poland’s deputy chief of the General Staff, said the military is almost finished securing state-owned land for its Eastern Shield project along the Russian border, making sure to avoid taking private property except in a few agreed cases.

The project, which started in spring twenty twenty-four, aims to strengthen defenses with fortifications, storage depots, anti-drone systems, and surveillance, using both manmade barriers and natural terrain.

On the same day, military and local officials met in the small village of Momajny, in northeastern Poland, after locals worried about increased army activity and big trucks damaging roads. The military promised to fix the roads, work with communities, and set up a small depot in each border county, plus a central hub in every province for quick equipment deployment.

Following that, on Friday, the 8th, Maciej Lasek, the Government Commissioner, said Poland will apply this year for the main construction permits for its mega-airport in the village of Baranów, in central Poland, west of Warsaw, and plans to start building in twenty twenty-six.

The permits cover the airport terminal in Baranów and a rail tunnel almost five kilometers (around three miles) long under Łódź, in central Poland, both set to finish by twenty thirty-two.

The government will also launch a tender for a separate ten km, about six miles, tunnel between Warsaw and Łódź by the end of the year.

Also on Friday, the 8th, PM Donald Tusk visited the Baltic Power offshore wind farm near Łeba, in northern Poland, and said the country will host a summit of Baltic Sea states to tackle growing GPS problems affecting maritime infrastructure.

Pilots from Poland, Sweden, Estonia, and Lithuania, along with ship crews in the Gulf of Finland, have been reporting GPS issues since Russia started its full-scale war in Ukraine in February twenty twenty-two. Tusk said the jamming, likely from Russia’s Kaliningrad region, is disrupting flights and could slow down big projects like the wind farm.

In July twenty twenty-five, the International Civil Aviation Organization told Russia to stop the GPS jamming, but Russia hasn’t admitted to doing it.

Poland, leading the Council of the Baltic Sea States, plans to use the summit to boost cooperation and protect critical infrastructure from hybrid threats, working with NATO and neighbors.

Speaking of the PM, on Monday, the 11th, Tusk visited the Nitro-Chem plant in Bydgoszcz, northern Poland, and announced plans to build three new ammo factories by twenty twenty-eight to strengthen Poland’s defense and make sure the country can produce key ammunition itself.

He said this would give Polish manufacturers more opportunities and bring production of ammo they used to import under local control, including the licenses and tech.

He also talked about the upcoming US-Russia talks on Friday, the 15th, saying that Ukraine must join them and that Europe won’t accept any forced border changes.

More on security, as on Monday, the 11th, Krzysztof Gawkowski, the Deputy Prime Minister, joined Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, the Defence Minister, and Major General Karol Molenda at a conference in Legionowo, in central Poland, to showcase the country’s growing focus on cybersecurity.

Gawkowski said Poland can now block ninety-nine percent of cyberattacks and praised the Computer Security Incident Response Team and the Joint Cybersecurity Operations Centre, which monitor the country’s cyberspace.

Kosiniak-Kamysz also praised the 6,500-personnel cybersecurity unit, saying they’ve been spotting and handling cyber incidents nonstop for over three years and that these forces protect Poland from hackers trying to steal info, recruit agents, and threaten national security.

On Wednesday, the 13th, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said Poland will launch a new branch of the military focused on battlefield medicine.

The voluntary medical troops will include experienced medical specialists who can handle the challenges of modern warfare and apply lessons learned from the war in Ukraine.

He also announced that the military will create a medical legion to recruit civilian doctors, nurses, and other health professionals. It will follow the example of the cyber legion, which brings in IT specialists from Polish and international companies to support the armed forces in cybersecurity and digital defense.

Shifting gears to the economy, on Tuesday, the 12th, Poland’s government put EU recovery fund payments for the hospitality and restaurant sector on hold until officials check all contracts. Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz, the Regional Policy Minister, said some companies might even have to give back money they already got if audits show they misused it.

The move came after media reports showed some firms spent the funds on yachts, saunas, or shooting ranges instead of business needs.

The EU-funded program gave over one billion złoty, which is about 340 million dollars, to help hospitality, tourism, and food-service businesses recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, but officials have so far paid out only 110 million to eligible firms. Pełczyńska-Nałęcz said they’ll keep paying out legitimate grants while stopping or reclaiming the questionable ones.

On Monday, the 11th, PKP Cargo, Poland’s biggest freight rail company, said it will lay off up to 800 employees by the end of September after the workers’ unions didn’t reply to the company’s offer to swap some costly perks, like extra sick pay and longer notice periods, for a performance-based bonus system.

The plan aimed to save money and avoid layoffs, but without the unions’ approval, the company couldn’t change the collective agreement.

PKP Cargo has about 10,000 employees and is listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Last year, the company posted a net loss of more than two billion zloty, which is around 500 million dollars, with 300 million zloty, about seventy million dollars, in operating profit before taxes and costs.

Finally, an update on science. On Friday, the 8th, Poland kicked off its SPARK satellite project, which will build a small, cube-shaped modular satellite to test Polish-made satellite systems and components in orbit.

The project, led by the Łukasiewicz Research Network, will cost around fifteen million zloty, which is about three million dollars, and involve three of its institutes: the Institute of Aviation, the Institute of Non-Ferrous Metals, and the Industrial Institute of Automation and Measurements.

Marcin Kulasek, the Science Minister, said the project shows young Polish scientists they can do top-level space research and build satellites in the country, and it proves that Poland is rising in the global space scene.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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