PM Mateusz Morawiecki says Poland will ask for Germany’s go-ahead but answer is of ‘secondary importance’
Poland has reiterated that it is ready to send tanks to Ukraine without Germany’s consent, as pressure builds on Berlin to supply the heavy weapons that Kyiv has been calling for.
The Polish prime minister said his government would seek permission from Berlin to send its German-made Leopard tanks to Ukraine, but described that consent as of “secondary importance”.
Continue reading...Annalena Baerbock makes clearest signal yet that European allies could deliver German-made hardware
Germany would not “stand in the way” of Poland sending Leopard tanks to Ukraine, foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, has said, in what appeared to be the clearest signal yet from Berlin that European allies could deliver the German-made hardware.
Asked in an interview with French television LCI what would happen if Poland sent its Leopard 2 tanks without German approval, Baerbock replied through a translator: “For the moment the question has not been asked, but if we were asked we would not stand in the way.”
Continue reading...Images found in attic taken by Polish firefighter who risked life to record how Jewish Poles fought the Nazis despite impossible odds
The photographs are blurry, composed hastily and taken surreptitiously, sometimes with heads or objects in the foreground obscuring part of the view.
But Holocaust historians say the imperfect pictures, discovered last month in a Polish attic decades after their creator died, are nonetheless priceless. They are the only known photographs from inside the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising not to be taken by Germans.
Continue reading...Polish prime minister says key issue is to get military aid to Ukraine urgently, as US unveils fresh $2.5bn aid package including fighting vehicles but not tanks
The Polish prime minister has said his country would be willing to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine without securing Germany’s approval if Berlin does not agree to their re-export at Friday’s meeting of western defence ministers at Ramstein airbase.
Mateusz Morawiecki said in a radio interview on Thursday that “consent was of secondary importance” when it came to German-made tanks, because the key issue was to get military aid to Ukraine urgently.
Continue reading...Claims by Wagner mercenary group come as Poland announces transfer of German-made Leopard 2 tanks
Ukraine’s military has denied that Russian forces have encircled and captured Soledar after claims by the head of the Wagner mercenary group that the eastern city had fallen.
The claims about the status of the fighting on the eastern Donbas front were made by Yevgeny Prigozhin as Poland announced that it planned to transfer 10 German-made Leopard 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, in a move with wide significance.
Continue reading...Berlin insists all financial claims have been settled as Warsaw seeks £1.2tn for war losses
Germany has rebuffed the latest push by Poland’s nationalist government for vast reparations over the second world war, saying in response to a diplomatic note that the issue was closed, according to the foreign ministry in Warsaw.
Poland estimates its losses in the second world war caused by Germany at 6.2tn złotys (£1.2tn) and has demanded reparations, but Berlin has repeatedly said all financial claims related to the war have been settled.
Continue reading...At least eight countries experience record high temperatures of ‘almost unheard of’ heat, say meteorologists
Weather records have been falling across Europe at a disconcerting rate in the last few days, say meteorologists.
The warmest January day ever was recorded in at least eight European countries including Poland, Denmark, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Belarus, Lithuania and Latvia, according to data collated by Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist who tracks extreme temperatures.
Continue reading...LGBTQ+ rights groups praise ex-Spice Girl for pulling out of New Year’s Eve appearance on state broadcaster
The former Spice Girl Melanie C says she has cancelled a performance in Poland on New Year’s Eve after being made aware of issues “that do not align with the communities I support”.
She did not elaborate but was praised by allies of the LGBTQ+ community.
Continue reading...A shared sense of national history is proving to be a crucial weapon, spurring on Ukraine resistance and Russian soldiers
The Ukrainian writer Oksana Zabuzhko recalls a quote attributed to Otto von Bismarck: “Wars are not won by generals, but by schoolteachers and parish priests.” It’s a country’s taught collective memory, its shared sense of its own history, that are the decisive instruments for mobilisation, and are as important on the battlefield as weaponry.
Few conflicts have been so shaped by the chief actors’ sense of their own national story as the Ukrainian war that began in February. It is the competing grand narratives of the past, not just in Russia and Ukraine, but in Germany, France, Poland, the Baltics, the UK, the US, and even the global south, that make this war so hard to resolve.
Continue reading...Irmgard Furchner, 97, who worked at Stutthof concentration camp during the second world war, is given a two-year suspended sentence
A 97-year-old former secretary at a Nazi concentration camp has been found guilty of complicity in the murder of more than 10,500 people imprisoned there, and handed a two-year suspended sentence.
Irmgard Furchner, who has been on trial in the northern German town of Itzehoe for more than a year, spoke to the court on one occasion earlier this month to say she was sorry for what had happened, but stopped short of admitting her guilt.
Continue reading...Prosecutors investigating after Jarosław Szymczyk injured in blast at police headquarters in Warsaw
Polish prosecutors are investigating a “violent release of energy” at the national police headquarters amid media reports that the chief of police fired a grenade launcher in his office.
Poland’s interior ministry said on Thursday that Jarosław Szymczyk, the police commander in chief, was injured and taken to hospital when a present he received during a visit to Ukraine exploded at police headquarters in Warsaw.
Continue reading...Warsaw seeking explanation from Kyiv after Jarosław Szymczyk taken to hospital with minor injuries
Poland’s police chief, Jarosław Szymczyk, has been taken to hospital with minor injuries after a gift he received from a senior Ukrainian official exploded, the interior ministry said on Thursday.
“Yesterday at 7.50am there was an explosion in a room next to the office of the police chief,” a statement said. “One of the presents the police chief received during his working visit to Ukraine on December 11 and 12 exploded.”
Continue reading...Poland, which was pushing for low cap, says deal will keep it at least 5% below market rate
European Union member states have agreed to put a $60 a barrel price cap on Russian oil after Poland, which was holding out, gave the green light to the deal.
In an effort to reduce the Kremlin’s income from fossil fuels, the EU has agreed to limit the amount that can be paid for seaborne oil to curtail Moscow’s ability to finance its war in Ukraine.
Continue reading...Opposition to Russian aggression has helped Poles and Ukrainians put bitter 20th-century history behind them
Patriot missiles ring the airport in the Polish border city of Rzeszów, and US troops have taken over the Holiday Inn opposite the terminal. On its runway, once the preserve of budget carriers, private jets are lined up beside cargo planes crammed with weapons.
The bristling circle of military protection, set up hastily in early spring as the historic town became the world’s gateway to the war in Ukraine, is both a shield and a constant reminder of the conflict on its doorstep.
Continue reading...Kremlin spokesperson claims ‘Ukrainians do not want any negotiations’; Kyiv and Dnipro air defence systems work to shoot down incoming rockets
Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov has said that the Black Sea grain initiative will be prolonged for 120 days.
Writing in a tweet, he said the deal was agreed between UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres and Ukraine’s president, Volodimir Zelenskiy.
He added that Ukraine had officially appealed to extend the initiative, which was agreed in July and enables Russian and Ukrainian wheat and fertilisers to be exported through the Black Sea, for one year and to include the Mykolaiv port.
His remarks could not immediately be confirmed independently.
The July deal has helped stave off a global food crisis by allowing exports through ports that had been blockaded by Russia.
Poland says no evidence to suggest missile was launched by Russia – but Kyiv insists ‘it was not our rocket’
Ukraine’s air defence was probably responsible for a blast that killed two people in south-eastern Poland, the Polish president has said, while Nato said Russia was ultimately to blame as Moscow had started the war and launched the attack that triggered Kyiv’s defences.
While fears eased of a dangerous escalation in the war, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, insisted on Wednesday he had “no doubt” the missile concerned was not Ukrainian.
Continue reading...Two farmers killed near border with Ukraine by what Poland has claimed were Russian-made weapons
Poland’s president Andrzej Duda said he expected his country would call for an emergency meeting of Nato members on Wednesday after “Russian-made” missiles strayed over into the country killing two people.
The incident is the first time that the territory of a Nato country has been struck during the near nine month Ukraine war, and follows an intense 100-missile attack by Russia on Ukraine, which saw millions lose power and supply in neighbouring Moldova also disrupted.
Continue reading...Incident in which two people died probably falls short of threshold needed to prompt collective Nato action against Russia
• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates
If it was a Russian missile that struck a Polish village on Tuesday, killing two people, it would be the first time a Russian weapon has ever come down on Nato territory.
The Soviet Union and the US managed to get through the whole cold war without making such a mistake, because Washington and Moscow were well aware of the risks of going to war by accident or miscalculation.
Continue reading...European Commission wears ‘velvet gloves’ when dealing with spyware used on citizens, says chief of inquiry on hacking software, including Pegasus
The senior MEP leading an inquiry into spyware has accused the EU commission of ignoring the “grave threat to democracy” posed by the use of the technology, and national governments of failing to co-operate with her investigation.
The Dutch liberal MEP Sophie in ‘t Veld said there was illegal use of spyware in Poland, Hungary, Greece and Spain and suspicions about Cyprus, while other EU member states made it easy for the “shady” industry to operate.
Continue reading...Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of the ruling party, criticised by opposition for ‘nonsense’ comments
Outrage built up in Poland on Monday after the governing party’s leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, claimed excessive drinking by young women was to blame for the EU country’s low birthrate.
Opposition politicians, female celebrities and others denounced the 73-year-old as out of touch and patriarchal, dismissing his comments as nonsense.
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