President Duda: safety of Poland is priceless, we cannot afford idleness today

A huge military parade took place in Warsaw to mark Poland's Armed Forces Day. President Andrzej Duda gave a speech during the festivities.

"Armed Forces Day perfectly connects the past, the present, and the future. This is the best day to talk about our safety here and now, in 2023, but also about the future safety of our children and grandchildren," the president said.

In his view, "anyone can see that security is a fundamental issue". "Once again we came to live in dangerous times, with a full-scale war taking place behind our eastern border. A war whose end is nowhere to be seen. We, the Poles, have got engaged from the very first moment in helping Ukraine which is heroically facing the Russian invaders," Duda added.

He stressed that "because the Ukraine's defenders are stopping the Russian onslaught ... Poland is safer today". "If someone can't understand this and criticises our support, than in fact they don't understand anything, they don't understand what Poland's security is based on. Indpendent Ukraine and independent Belarus are very important to Poland's safety."

The president said that "border defence is one of the pillars of independence," adding that Poland "has become the target of a hybrid attack on the border, orchestrated by Russian and Belarusian services".

"As you all well know, ladies and gentlemen, we have passed this test. We owe it to the conduct and sacrifice of Polish soldiers and officers," he said, thanking all those working at the borders.

"We are strengthening and modernizing our armed forces, this year we will earmark more than 4% of GDP for defence - 137 billion zlotys. This modernization will include all categories of equipment," Duda said.

He explained that "the goal of this whole huge modernization is to arm the Polish Army and create such a defence system so that no one ever dares to attack us, so that the Polish soldier does not need to fight, so that our potential alone becomes a deterring element sufficient enough for any kind of aggression".

"Unfortunately, there are some who criticise this ambitious program. There are some who reproach us for getting into debt in order to buy modern equipment. Whenever I hear such voices, I always reply: we cannot wait with this for 20 or 30 years. We cannot afford idleness today. The safety of Poland, of Polish women and men, is priceless," the president stressed.

President Duda also said that "the last eight years have been a time of reconstruction of the Polish military and strengthening of Poland's security".

He added that previously "we had been dealing with a completely opposite situation - with a decrease in the number of Polish armed forces, liquidation of many units, declining military presence in the east of Poland, and adopting Poland's defence plans on the Vistula line". "There can be no coming back to that wrong policy."

Duda stressed that the Polish Armed Forces at the moment have over 175,000 soldiers.

The president underscored that on August 15 "we pay tribute to Polish soldiers who shed blood in defence of our homeland on many different battlefields" so that Poland could be "free, independent and secure".

"This is a day in which we recall the huge victory of 1920 won by the barely resurging Republic of Poland against the Soviet Russia. The heroism of Polish soldiers in the Battle of Warsaw decided a victory that had an enormous significance for the safety of our homeland as well as the whole of Europe," Duda said. He added that stopping the Bolshevik expansion prevented the spread of Russian communist revolution into the West.

"Polish soldiers changed the course of history. They defended the whole of Europe."

In his opinion, this was a lesson everyone should draw conclusion from. "That's why I pleaded multiple times during my presidency that Poland's security issues be kept out of political disputes, especially in such uneasy times that we have found ourselves in."

Duda added that "when the Bolshevik forces were approaching Warsaw 103 years ago, we were able to unite as a nation". He said that the founding fathers of independence were united by Poland and its safety.

Before the president took the floor, Poland's Minister of National Defence Mariusz Błaszczak gave his speech. "August 15 is not only an occasion to pay homage to the heroes of the victorious Battle of Warsaw and to thank today's soldiers for protecting our homeland. It is also a perfect day to display our strength, to show we have built powerful Armed Forces that won't hesitate to effectively defend our borders, to demonstrate Poland has become an important player on the international stage," he said.

The MOD chief said that "long gone are the times when our military felt ashamed of the equipment they were using and the conditions they were serving under". "Today we show our strenght and modernity. Strong white-and-red is the motto of this year's Armed Forces Day celebrations. The white-and-red's strength lies in the Polish Armed Forces - professional, effective, and fitted with the state-of-the-art equipment we have purchased in recent years," Błaszczak added.