Category Archives: Poland

Polish border ‘pushbacks’ back in spotlight after pregnant woman’s ordeal

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Activists say little has changed in treatment of migrants and refugees under Donald Tusk’s new government

The case of a woman from Eritrea who was forced to give birth alone in the forested border area between Poland and Belarus has raised questions about the new Polish government’s response to the continuing humanitarian crisis at the border between the two countries.

The previous, rightwing government of the Law and Justice party (PiS) used the migration issue to score political points and was accused of encouraging rights abuses by guards along the border, with reports of frequent violent “pushbacks” of people to Belarus.

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Poland and Lithuania pledge to help Kyiv repatriate Ukrainians subject to military draft

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Strong rhetoric is boost for Ukraine reinforcement drive but it is not clear by which mechanism émigrés could be sent back

Poland and Lithuania have said they are prepared to help Ukrainian authorities return men subject to military conscription to the country, after Kyiv announced this week that it was suspending consular services for such men who were now abroad.

“We have suggested for a long time that we can help the Ukrainian side ensure that people subject to [compulsory] military service go to Ukraine,” Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, Poland’s defence minister, told the television channel Polsat, though he did not elaborate on what mechanisms could be used.

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Soiled nappies and karate: AI-rendered Putin biopic to be released

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Polish director Besaleel’s film will feature an AI-rendered Russian president and footage shot by Ukrainian film-makers during the Russian invasion

The “world premiere” of a new biopic of Russian president Vladimir Putin featuring an AI-rendered central character, has been announced for 26 September. In a statement released via PR Leap, Polish studio AIO said the film, titled Putin, will be released in 35 countries, and describes itself as “up close and personal with the Kremlin leader’s story”.

First announced in May 2022, Putin is the English-language debut of Polish director Besaleel, also known as Patryk Vega, who was responsible for a string of homegrown box-office hits characterised by grisly violence and glossy production values including Pitbull, Mafia Women and Botoks.

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Rishi Sunak promises UK’s largest ever military support package for Ukraine

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PM pledges equipment including 400 vehicles, 1,600 weapons and 4m rounds of ammunition, plus £500m in funding

Rishi Sunak has promised the UK’s largest ever military support package for Ukraine as he warned that Vladimir Putin would “not stop at the Polish border” if Russia won the war.

The prime minister will visit Poland on Tuesday to discuss European security and the threat from Russia with the Polish leader, Donald Tusk, and the Nato secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, before travelling to Germany to meet the chancellor, Olaf Scholz.

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Belarusian held in Poland suspected of ordering hammer attack on Navalny ally

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Two Polish citizens detained earlier on suspicion of attacking Russian opposition figure Leonid Volkov in Lithuania

A Belarusian national has been detained in Poland on suspicion of ordering the attack on a top Russian opposition leader, Leonid Volkov, on Moscow’s behalf, the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, has announced.

Volkov, a close aide of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was briefly admitted to hospital last month after he was ambushed and attacked outside his house in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. The assailant smashed open Volkov’s car window and repeatedly struck him with a hammer, breaking Volkov’s left arm and damaging his left leg before fleeing the scene.

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Polish man arrested over alleged Russian plot to assassinate Zelenskiy

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Poland’s national prosecutor says man was preparing to share security details of airport used by Ukrainian president

A Polish man has been arrested on allegations that he aided a plot by Russian intelligence services to assassinate the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, according to Polish and Ukrainian prosecutors.

The office of Poland’s national prosecutor said in a statement that the man, identified only as Pawel K, was accused of being prepared to pass airport security information to Russian agents and that he was arrested in Poland on Wednesday.

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Poland’s president may meet Donald Trump ‘socially’ in New York

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Andrzej Duda’s visit comes as European leaders prepare for Trump’s possible return to White House

Andrzej Duda, Poland’s conservative president, is expected to meet Donald Trump in New York on Wednesday evening, as some European politicians begin preparing for Trump’s possible return to the White House.

Many mainstream European leaders fear the potential impact of a US that is less engaged on the continent, and less committed to the future of Ukraine.

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‘Wonderful experience’: Researcher’s close encounter with Svalbard polar bears

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Meteorologist says bears were not aggressive but they fired signal gun to scare them away

Katarzyna Kudłacz was preparing a breakfast of scrambled eggs at a research station on Svalbard when she looked up to see she had three unexpected guests.

Shocked and in awe, the meteorologist immediately alerted her colleagues to the female polar bear and her two cubs peering into the Polish research station in Hornsund, in the south of the Norwegian archipelago, their noses pressed up against the window.

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Five killed by falling trees as winds reach 96mph in southern Poland

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Deaths, including those of two children, occured in three separate incidents, two in Zakopane and one in Rabka-Zdrój

Five people have been killed by falling trees as strong winds battered southern Poland on Monday, reaching a speed of 96mph (155km/h) in the highest parts of the Tatra mountains.

In the town of Rabka-Zdrój, two women and a six-year-old died after a tree crushed them, firefighters said.

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Europe must get ready for looming war, Donald Tusk warns

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Polish prime minister urges countries to step up defence spending after Russian missile bound for Ukraine breaches airspace

The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, says Europe is entering a “prewar” era, cautioning that the continent is not ready and urging European countries to step up defence investment.

In an interview with a group of European newspapers reported by the BBC, Tusk said: “I don’t want to scare anyone, but war is no longer a concept from the past. It’s real and it started over two years ago.”

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Poland to demand explanation from Moscow after missile breaches its airspace during Ukraine attack

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Russian missile was targeting Ukraine’s Lviv region while Kyiv suffers third pre-dawn attack in four days

Poland said it would demand an explanation from Moscow after a Russian missile briefly breached Polish airspace during a massive missile attack on Ukraine, prompting the Nato member to put its forces on heightened readiness.

Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with Sunday’s early morning strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut.

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Populist parties’ divisions jeopardise chances of setting European agenda

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Survey shows supporters of nationalist parties hold widely differing views on EU membership, migration and support for Ukraine

Populist and nationalist parties fighting the European elections in June are deeply divided on almost all key issues, according to a survey, in a finding that questions their chances of defining the bloc’s agenda even in the event of a predicted far-right surge.

However, the report, by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), also said pro-EU parties risked mobilising the Eurosceptic vote if they continued to ape hard-right policies rather than coming up with persuasive alternatives.

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German, French and Polish leaders hold emergency meeting on Ukraine

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European military powers try to dampen tensions between them over Russian war and US aid for Kyiv

The three leading military powers in mainland Europe – France, Germany and Poland – are holding an emergency session in Berlin to try to dampen tensions over their different responses to the twin spectres of Russian military advances in Ukraine and US Congress’s refusal to approve substantial further military aid for Kyiv.

The clash in approach – predominantly between the newly hawkish French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the perennially cautious German chancellor, Olaf Scholz – was laid bare in a dramatic French TV interview on Thursday night in which Macron said Europe’s security, even its existence, was at risk.

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Russia suspected of jamming GPS signal on aircraft carrying Grant Shapps

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RAF jet was taking defence secretary back to UK from Poland, and flying near Russian exclave of Kaliningrad

Russia is believed to have jammed the satellite signal on an RAF aircraft carrying Grant Shapps back from Poland, according to government sources.

Defence sources said there was no danger to Shapps, who was travelling back to the UK, though they called it a “wildly irresponsible” act of electronic warfare.

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MPs and campaigners accuse Polish government of betrayal over abortion laws

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Speaker says parliament will not consider updating country’s draconian abortion policies until mid-April

Women’s groups and opposition politicians have taken aim at Poland’s parliamentary speaker, accusing him of betrayal and seeking to “freeze” the issue of abortion, after he said parliament would not consider legislation to tackle the country’s near-total ban on abortion until mid-April.

“We feel disappointed and betrayed,” said Dominika Ćwiek from Legal Abortion, one of the groups that has been at the forefront of the battle against the country’s draconian abortion policies. “The rights of Polish women are being treated as a side issue.”

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Poland’s rightwing opposition criticises Tusk’s education shake-up

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Coalition government to slim down school curriculum after cramming of subjects under previous nationalist administration

Poland’s new government is seeking to slim down the material taught in schools by about 20%, saying a cramming of the curriculum under the previous rightwing populist administration has left teachers and students exhausted.

Speaking during a school visit in the Silesian town of Mysłowice over the weekend, the education minister, Barbara Nowacka, said she was consulting experts on how to narrow down the curriculum, which will come into force in secondary schools after the summer break, from 1 September.

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Russia-Ukraine war: head of Germany’s far-right AfD condemns ‘theatrics’ over Navalny’s death – as it happened

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Tino Chrupalla says it is ‘unbearable’ the extent to which Putin has been blamed, with similar comments from Italian deputy PM Matteo Salvini

The Republican senator Lindsey Graham, a key ally of Donald Trump, has been added to a list of “terrorists and extremists” kept by Russia’s state financial monitoring agency.

Tass, the state-run news agency, first reported the move by Rosfinmonitoring, which allows authorities to freeze Russian bank accounts, though in Graham’s case is likely to be chiefly symbolic.

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Polish farmers dump grain in protest as Ukraine dispute deepens

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Volodymyr Zelenskiy accuses Warsaw of ‘mockery’ as farmers blockade Ukrainian grain at border

Poland’s bitter dispute with Ukraine over farm imports has escalated as Polish farmers dumped grain from a freight train as part of nationwide protests and Volodymyr Zelenskiy accused Warsaw of “mockery”.

In a video address on Monday, Ukraine’s president described the blockade by Polish farmers as absurd at a time when Russia was bombing his country. “The situation is not about grain, but rather about politics,” he said, after a visit to the frontline town of Kupiansk.

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‘This is where I apologise’: Polish state TV presenter says sorry to LGBT+ viewers

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Activist Bart Staszewski hails ‘meaningful and necessary’ apology as opening new chapter for state broadcaster

A television presenter with Poland’s state broadcaster has apologised for the years of “shameful words” directed at LGBTQ+ people, in a moment hailed by a prominent rights campaigner as the closing of a chapter in Polish society.

Bart Staszewski, an activist and film-maker, said the apology made to him live on air on Sunday showed the transformation of a broadcaster that served as a mouthpiece for the Law and Justice (PiS) party during its time in power.

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