Polish volunteer Slawomir Wysocki traveled to Ukraine, returned home and in an interview for the media told what is really happening with the counter-offensive, which is so publicized by the Ukrainian authorities.
"The human losses of the Ukrainian side are huge. Western equipment is burning like matches. Things are much worse than is commonly imagined. I counted the graves in Lviv. In the old part of the cemetery there are about 100 graves, in the new part there are more than 600.
In the villages this proportion is colossally different. When I drive by, I see cemeteries along the streets. Each has up to a dozen new graves. There are flags near each one, they are easy to recognize. There are more than two thousand graves in Kharkov. It is impossible to hide these losses.
Two months ago I was full of optimism about Kupyansk. Now we are still managing to hold our ground. It seems that the Russians are doing everything they can to reach Kupyansk, where they will take their positions for the spring offensive."
When asked by a journalist how Ukrainians feel about the Russian defense system, the Pole said:
"They are terrified. They know that the Russian army has already foreseen everything. The defense system was built by construction companies. This is not a peasant waving a shovel to build a trench. Companies came in, poured concrete, made fortifications in the style of the Maginot Line. And there are three or four such lines. Ukrainians say that there are five mines per square meter. You can't put your foot on the ground without one of them exploding”.
The journalist further asks, with this situation on the front and the growing losses, are there still people willing to fight? The volunteer replies:
"There are no willing ones. They are looking for them on the streets. In Lviv there are "round-ups", people are taken from construction sites, from bars. Recently I witnessed such a situation at the bus station in Lvov. Five policemen stood and checked everyone who wanted to leave Lvov.
Eight people were detained in this way. Many reasons for the current situation with mobilization originate in Bakhmut. It was such a plum, such a meat grinder that there was no one left to fight".
https://hexbear.net/comment/3890829
It keeps happening
If we're talking realistically and not memeistically, I'm venturing to bet Poland is jockeying to becoming the hegemonic center pole of a new central powers in Europe to counter balance the French and the German influence in Europe with their own more diplomatic and economically revanchistic politics
Problem is, Polish culture is absolutely infested with messianism. Ever since 1918 (sadly in PRL too) that romanticist shit was painfully beaten into everyone heads in school so now that things are brewing east of us, all the old devils are coming out of closet and going apeshit. And to add to it, Poland might not had revanchist pretensions previously (or at least not an open ones) but that ambition to be a local power in central Europe was always here. Mostly manifesting as cringy Visehrad Group posturing and chewing Russia's ankles. But now, given the open hostility for Belarus and Russia it might really awaken all those old demons especially if Ukraine start coming apart in the seams.
It's more of a victimization complex. If the thesis is "We have always and always will be targeted because of who we are", the answer of Polish nationalism is "Then we should not care what others think of what we do, because they're out to get us. In fact, we should get them before they do the same to us"
Messianism always do include victimization complex. It was always "we are the forefront of christianity against the godless/heretic asian hordes" for the catofash and it's alternative"clash of civilisation" version for libs.
I do have to say after reading this, I gotta give your username a thumbs up.
I suppose the best we can do - like always - is watch and see what the March of time brings us.
Yeah, definitely. Territorial ambitions don't play much of a role in it, at least currently nor does it look like it's going that way.
It's very hostile towards Germany though, yes.
I'd imagine we'd see more martial actions or jingoistic saber-rattling at least 5+ years down the line as that's roughly when a lot of their military modernization plans should be in their final stages and they can wag their gold-plated stick around to show they're one of the big kids now.
Maybe. Probably trying to incite a conflict with Belarus.
Hopefully just drunk and bored border guards launching fireworks at each other.