President Andrzej Duda has called a meeting at the National Security Bureau to discuss preparations for July's NATO summit in Vilnius. Among those invited by the president for Thursday's meeting are: Defence Minister Mariusz Błaszczak, Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau, Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces General Rajmund Andrzejczak, and Operational Commander of the Armed Forces Branches Lieutenant General Tomasz Piotrowski.
Chief of the National Security Bureau (BBN) Jacek Siewiera informed on Wednesday on Twitter that President Andrzej Duda had scheduled a meeting for Thursday's at the BBN seat in Warsaw. The talks will be devoted to preparation to the NATO summit that is to take place on July 11-12 in Vilnius.
The president has invited, among others, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence Mariusz Błaszczak, Minister of Foreign Affairs Zbigniew Rau, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Poland to the North Atlantic Council Tomasz Szatkowski, Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces Gen. Rajmund Andrzejczak, and Operational Commander of the Armed Forces Branches Lieutenant General Tomasz Piotrowski.
Information chaos over missile remains found near Bydgoszcz
Some of the above-mentioned figures have commented in recent days on the remains of a Russian missile found in a forest near Bydgoszcz.
Defence Minister Mariusz Błaszczak said an inspection he requested after the object was found showed that Armed Forces Operational Command had received information from Ukraine about a possible missile heading towards Poland, but failed to take appropriate action.
"It was established that on December 16, the air operations centre subordinate to the operational commander received information from the Ukrainian side about an object approaching Polish space, which may be a missile," Błaszczak said.
"According to the findings of the inspection, the operational commander failed to perform his duties of informing me ... and other services provided for in the procedures about the object that appeared in Polish airspace."
The said commander was none other than Operational Commander of the Armed Forces Branches Lieutenant General Tomasz Piotrowski.
"An appeal for reason"
In a statement which did not refer directly to Błaszczak's comments, Gen. Piotrowski called on Poles to remain united in the face of the threat from Russia.
"I wanted to make an appeal for reason, that we weigh our emotions very much in the coming days... that we do not feed a very ambitious and aggressive opponent," he said.
"I learned about this incident when I informed about it. It was at the end April, a few days before the end of April, in the middle of the week," Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on May 10 and 11. He added that - according to his best knowledge - experts were carrying out detailed examination of the place of the incident and the object found.
An RMF FM reporter asked Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces Gen. Rajmund Andrzejczak about the PM's comment. He assured he had personally informed his superiors about the incident, but avoided giving the exact date of passing said information. He just said that it happened "when it happened".
"Let's wait until the prosecutor's office has finished the investigation as then we should have the official version. Please ask the prime minister or the minister. I'm just carrying out what's within the scope of my duties," he added.
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, Reuters, PAP