POLAND: Missed Talks in the US & more – 21st Aug 2025

Witam from BA! This is the Rorshok Poland Update from the 21st of August twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Poland.

Let’s kick off with foreign affairs. On Monday, the 18th, Georgette Mosbacher, former US ambassador to Poland, criticized Poland for missing high-level talks in Washington, saying it was probably the new president, Karol Nawrocki’s, fault since his administration is “still settling in.”She said she hopes Nawrocki realizes how important Poland is in supporting Ukraine.

Radosław Sikorski, Poland’s Deputy PM and Foreign Minister, also criticized Nawrocki’s office, especially Marcin Przydacz, the President’s Foreign Policy Chief, for wrongly saying that Poland’s absence was because PM Tusk and Sikorski didn’t register to participate in the talks, and stressed they need to stick to the facts.

Also, on Monday, prosecutors charged Robert Bąkiewicz, an ultra-nationalist activist, for calling Border Guard and military police officers traitors back in June while they were on duty. He denied the accusations, refused to testify, and now has to stay under police watch and keep at least a kilometer, about half a mile, away from border crossings with Germany.

Mariusz Błaszczak, an MP from the opposition Law and Justice party, said the charges are politically motivated because Bąkiewicz had exposed cases of German authorities pushing migrants into Poland, something the Civic coalition, which holds the majority in parliament, denies. Bąkiewicz and his supporters have been running citizen patrols along Poland’s border with Germany since March to stop mass migration.

The Civic coalition says the number of illegal crossings is going down and that only official services are allowed to handle border security under Schengen rules.

A couple of days later, on Wednesday, the 20th, a Russian drone violated Polish airspace and exploded in a cornfield near the village of Osiny, close to Poland’s eastern border.

The blast left a large crater, and investigators confirmed the drone carried explosives, though they are still checking whether it blew up mid-air or on impact. Fortunately, no one was hurt, and experts are working to identify the drone’s type.

Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, the Defence Minister, called it a deliberate provocation, saying it came at a sensitive time during ongoing peace talks. He also announced that Poland will strengthen its anti-drone defences.

Government officials urged the public to trust reliable sources when incidents like this happen, since Russia may try to spread fear, confusion, or false reports.

In another kind of security issues, on Thursday, the 14th, Krzysztof Gawkowski, the Deputy Prime Minister, said in an interview with Onet, one of Poland’s biggest news sites, that cybersecurity and emergency services recently stopped a cyberattack just in time before it could cut off the water, though he didn’t say which city got targeted or who was behind it.

He explained that even though Poland manages to block about ninety-nine percent of cyberattacks, there’s always some risk, especially since local governments run a lot of key infrastructure like water, electricity, and transport systems, spreading themselves too thin, which makes them easier targets.

Gawkowski also said the government is putting around ten billion zloty, which is almost three billion dollars, into cybersecurity for the rest of twenty twenty-five and twenty twenty-six, on top of an earlier 800 million dollar allocation for a national cyber shield program to protect water and electricity, and block cyberattacks, especially from Russia.

Following that, on Friday, the 15th, Poland celebrated Armed Forces Day, which is also a public holiday, with its biggest event in years, featuring around fifty planes, 300 military vehicles, and over 4,000 troops.

For the first time, the holiday included a naval parade, featuring about twenty ships off the Hel Peninsula, including corvettes, frigates, minehunters, and rescue ships.

The Warsaw parade showed off tanks, infantry vehicles, mine-layers, F-16 jets, and helicopters.

The celebration marked the 105th anniversary of Poland’s victory over the Russian Bolsheviks in the nineteen twenty Battle of Warsaw, which stopped the Red Army from advancing into Europe.

Since we mentioned Warsaw, on Sunday, the 17th, activists held a March for Palestine in the capital, which started at the Copernicus Monument and headed to the Polish Parliament.

Groups like Emil Al-Khawaldeh, a pro-Palestinian movement, Pracownicza Demokracja, a Polish progressive organization, and the Kefija collective, consisting of activists supporting Palestinian rights, organized the march, demanding that Poland cut ties with Israel, impose a full arms embargo, support genocide survivors, carry out medical evacuations from Gaza, hold Israeli citizens accountable for war crimes, and suspend visa agreements with Israel.

The government monitored the protest closely to make sure nothing illegal or antisemitic happened.

Speaking of Israel, on Friday, the 15th, Poland’s Foreign Ministry condemned fans of Israeli club Maccabi Haifa for flashing an anti-Polish banner in their Europa Conference League game against Polish team Raków Częstochowa in Hungary, implying that Poland was responsible for killings during WWII.

The ministry called it outrageous and stressed incidents like this shouldn’t hurt Polish-Israeli relations. Jakub Rutnicki, the Sports Minister, said UEFA should punish the club, calling the display of the banner totally unacceptable. Other officials said the incident twisted history.

Sikorski reminded that it was Nazi Germany, not Poland, that invaded countries in WWII, and thanked Israel’s embassy in Warsaw for condemning the fans' actions.

On Sunday, the 17th, Małgorzata Manowska, the Head of the Supreme Court, submitted a complaint to the Constitutional Tribunal asking them to review the law that taxes garages way higher if they’re standalone or outside residential buildings compared to ones inside homes, saying all garages do the same job and should be taxed equally.

Garages in residential buildings are taxed at one złoty per square meter, around thirty US cents, while those in other buildings are taxed twelve złoty per square meter, about three dollars. Manowska said the law breaks constitutional rules on equality, property rights, and fair taxation.

The case is now registered with the Tribunal, but there’s no hearing date yet, and the Constitutional Tribunal currently has only eleven out of fifteen judges, with four seats empty due to arguments over new appointments and some disputes over which judges are legitimate.

Next up, new projects. On Monday, the 18th, Wody Polskie, Poland’s state water agency, announced a bunch of new projects to boost flood and drought protection across the country. Over twenty construction sites are already running or about to start, including reservoirs, pumping stations, and levees designed for local risks.

The agency said the government is funding around 180 projects with 250 million złoty, which is about seventy million dollars, including major works like the Góra Ropczycka reservoir in southeastern Poland, which protects 12,000 residents.

The projects also focus on retaining rainwater locally to help farms and ecosystems.

In other news, on Thursday, the 14th, Warsaw’s Public Transport Authority announced plans to buy 120 articulated buses for regular routes and emergency evacuations.

The tender is split into two lots of sixty buses, and bus makers can bid for one or both. Offers are due by the 16th of September, and the buses should arrive in Warsaw between October and December twenty twenty-six.

The buses will be low-floor, air-conditioned, with passenger screens, wheelchair spaces, solar panels, Braille buttons and alcohol locks to prevent bus drivers from driving after drinking. They’ll use diesel engines for reliability in emergencies and long trips.

These buses are part of Warsaw’s civil protection plans, and the city will seek government funding to help cover costs.

Closing this edition on a positive note, on Wednesday, the 20th, the police of Konin, in central Poland, told the media that domestic incidents have significantly dropped since the city banned alcohol sales at night in February. There were about 120 cases from February to June twenty twenty-five, down from around 400 last year.

The ban stops alcohol sales from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. in stores and gas stations except restaurants, and officials say it’s made nights calmer and cut down drinking among young people.

Since twenty eighteen, about 175 towns and cities in the country have tried similar night-time alcohol bans, mostly in the Mazowieckie province in central Poland, Małopolskie in the south, and Wielkopolskie in the west-central region.

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

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