A shadow rules Poland - who profits from the war psychosis? Karolina Pajączkowska

The host admits she has no weapon or training. Pajączkowska asks directly: 'Why not?', then argues using the burglar analogy: an attacker will not enter a house where there is an armed, trained owner. She scales this up to the state level – 37 million citizens, half of whom are trained, is a powerful deterrence potential. She gives the example of Finland, where almost everyone (women and men) knows how to shoot, and the country has 900,000 reservists with a population of a few million. She believes this deters Russia better than alliance papers.

Pajączkowska asks the host if he knows what to do in the first 48 hours of a crisis. She states that published guides are late and too general. She recommends securing data in the cloud, cash in different currencies (because banking systems may fail), a battery radio, power banks. In her opinion, this is basic equipment, not advanced survival. In a broader context, she emphasizes that the state is unprepared – the number of shelters is embarrassingly low, and the app for finding shelter locations mainly points to garages.

Pajączkowska points out that during the years of crisis, the state deliberately divides society (polarization) to maintain control. Citizens must unite from the bottom up. She gives the example of Finland: the community is so organized that if a child goes missing, they start searching themselves, without the police. In Austria, there are weapon storage points for local communities. She believes Poles should rebuild such bonds so that in the event of war or disaster, they know where the assembly point is, who has a weapon, how to communicate.

She indicates that in September 2025, a new strategy for the Polish Armed Forces was created, which mentions some form of conscription. Because 2026 is not an election year, even populist politicians will be able to make such a decision. France and Germany are already reinstating mandatory service. In Poland, conscription was not formally abolished, only suspended, so it is easy to unsuspend. In her opinion, this will be accompanied by social cuts (800+ already limited for non-working Ukrainians). The goal is not to send people to the front, but to create a reserve system – every trained citizen knows where their assembly point is, where to get a weapon, and who to contact.

Pajączkowska compares headlines from the late 1930s and today's – she says they are identical: promises from allies that there will be no war, and then defeat. She emphasizes that empires fall on average after 200 years, and we live in an illusion of peace ('rainbow bears'). In her opinion, politicians, instead of deliberating about genders, should ensure security, but they are dependent on foreign powers. As a result, citizens are unprepared, and the state has no will for real defense.

She notes that the two main parties (PiS, PO) are losing ground to Konfederacja and Braun, who talk about sovereignty. She believes Poles are beginning to understand that the current trajectory leads to war. She criticizes that the Polish establishment does not pursue its own policy, only servility towards Brussels or Washington. She poses the question: will the European Union bring benefits to Poland in the long term? This is not a call for Polexit, but for renegotiating the terms of membership.

Pajączkowska describes that on both the Russian and Ukrainian sides, soldiers die en masse, and their lives have no value. In Ukraine, corruption means the wounded are not treated without a bribe. Soldiers from Russian units go to war to earn money – wives say: 'Go Kolya, go, because if you die, we will get money and build a house.' In Bakhmut, troops were deliberately not withdrawn, sending young men to their deaths. She believes that in Poland human life still has value, but in the east it does not.

Pajączkowska describes a meeting with a man who revealed to her the mechanisms of recruiting journalists and politicians by the 'shadow' – they get access to information, set-up interviews. Refusal means destruction. She gives her own example: after she became popular on TVP, she was demanded to produce propaganda content; when she refused, she was fired, blackmailed with accusations of robbing the company, and then followed by detectives for three months (she has the report). In the Collegium Humanum scandal, two witnesses died in suspicious circumstances (one slit his throat with handcuffs in a police car). She says these people claim to care about Poland's security, but mainly about their own interests, and the threads reach Moscow.

Pajączkowska claims that for years, NATO doctrine was based on defense on the Vistula line, which explains closing divisions in the east and building highways in the west. This meant that in the event of a conflict, eastern Poland was to be quickly surrendered to the Russians. Revealing this plan resulted in prosecutor's charges against the former minister. Today the trend is reversing, but trust in allies is undermined.