I think it's still consistent with all that, people are misunderstanding the headline;
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Wednesday said his country would no longer arm Ukraine and will instead focus on its own defense.
Which makes sense, you can't give everything away. Also Ukraine may not need more weapons, and it might benefit more from other forms of support. Having a well defended allied neighbor has benefits too.
It's still 'bad', and could be a political move in response to the grain stuff, but it's not 'changing sides'
Perun has done an excellent job of demonstrating how dedicated Poland is, if not to the support of Ukraine, to the cause of inflicting maximum pain on Russia.
In terms of total budget, in terms of armament sent over unofficially, in terms of everything except getting involved in the firing themselves.
One might say there is a cultural component to Poland's very strong reaction to the situation. Which makes no more arms almost a non sequitur.
Even if Poland has given away everything it can give, the more they produce and buy, the more they can give. Until they're in a shooting war themselves
There are going to be parliamentary elections there this year, the polls put the governing party slightly behind the opposition on voting intentions, the Farmer's vote could tip the balance the other way and guess who is worried the most about "cheap grain from Ukraine"...
This is still a weird take. Russia can't even beat Ukraine. I imagine any attack on Poland would be quickly dealt with. That said, I know fuck all about wartime logistics.
Ukraine successfully defends against Russia because the rest of the world sends them tons of weapons. And because the famous 'second best army in the world' turned out to be a paper tiger.
Poland does not want the same thing to happen. They don't want to have to get weapons after invasion, they want to have the weapons beforehand to hopefully prevent the invasion from ever happening.
You are also thinking logically, like look at our military and look at their military and figure out if we can beat them or not. Dictatorships don't always work that way. If delivering bad news to the great leader has negative consequences, everybody's going to come up with good news whether it's real or not. 'Oh yes great leader, of course great leader, yes our military is strong sir, we stand ready to crush them like a small insect and there is nothing they have that can possibly stand up to your glorious military sir.'. It works until Great Leader actually orders a fight, and then when said fight goes to shit some people accidentally shoot themselves twice in the back of the head before tripping and falling out an unlocked window in tragic freak accidents.
Point is, Russia has shown that logic is not feeding their decisions. So when faced with an illogical enemy, Poland wants to arm up to dissuade any attempts from being made and fight them off if they happen anyway.
Poland is not perfect. Yes, they did support. However, they have always been a bit xenophobic and insular. It’s kind of like that wacky uncle or person in your community. Really nice as long as you avoid certain subjects. Like the Holocaust. It was only a matter of time. Idk why they think they need to make this move. Why not support the clear war front - keep it from advancing further to your doorstep.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Wednesday said his country would no longer arm Ukraine and will instead focus on its own defense.
His comments were made in response to a question from a reporter on whether Warsaw would continue to support Kyiv despite the disagreement over food exports.
Earlier on Wednesday, Poland said it had summoned Kyiv's ambassador over remarks by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the United Nations General Assembly.
It was the first NATO member to pledge fighter jets to Ukraine in March this year and started to make deliveries in early April.
Tensions between Warsaw and Kyiv have intensified in recent days over Poland's ban on Ukrainian grain imports to protect the interests of its farmers.
However, the European Commission last week said it was ending the import ban, claiming that "the market distortions in the five member states bordering Ukraine have disappeared."
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There are parliamentary elections in Poland this year and the party currently in power is behind the opposition in the polls, so they're appealing to the Farmer vote (the people who are worried about "cheap ukraniane grain") to try and tip the balance in their favour.
The excuses coming out of the mouths of those politicians and repeated here are in all likelihood bullshit, as usual.
Truly. Unfathomably fat L for poland. A country that bases its existence on victimhood is surprisingly victimized by grain and allowing rus*ia win its war on food. I know the folk at polish defense ministries must be fuming for domestic politics fucking them but still, fat fucking L poland.
Said this 100x now. Ukies must rebuild and expand their domestic weapons production ASAP. They can't forever rely on donations. It is not impossible since Ukraine was the high tech manufacturing center of the USSR. No need for the latest expensive high tech tanks and SPGs. Spam T-80s and conventional artillery AND build drone swarms. Drones automagically turn dumb artillery into smart munitions and allow commanders RTS game-like control over frontline units.
Ukies must rebuild and expand their domestic weapons production ASAP.
They're doing what they can with existing capacity and also innovating (e.g. all that drone stuff) but actual expansion takes time.
Take the Rheinmetall joint-venture as an example: The factory is slated to open in two years or so which is fast, but even then by then the war might already be over. OTOH Ukraine will have a very modern factory and Rheinmetall can basically file the whole investment into their advertisement budget as Rheinmetall itself will indeed be responsible for protecting the factory.
Ah yes, instead of defending their country with their lives from an invading force was a mistake, they should have been expanding, then they'd have all the weapons and drones they need!
I'm sure ruzzia would have paused the invasion to let them rebuild.
Assuming they manage to come out of this, I'm sure they're going to put a LOT of thought into how they rebuild, and I'm sure offensive and defensive tech is going to be a high priority, since clearly they can't rely on old treaties to keep them safe.
It wasn't wise from zelensky to blast his Allies at a UN general assembly like that. have some respect and understanding that those governments need to find a balance between domestic opinion and foreign policy.
That's crazy man, maybe they should fight their own war instead of expecting unlimited hand outs. They've already had an overwhelming about of aid, it's not like we haven't been doing that already.