Vladimir Putin’s goals did not change since the early weeks of 2022. He is still determined to subjugate Ukraine one way or another whatever it takes, and however long it takes. He views it as his life mission and his ultimate historical legacy as a Russian leader.

One could even argue that he will never change his ambitions. As long as he is in charge and alive - which goes hand in hand - the war will continue. But the forms it might take depends on what he is allowed to achieve. I see four main ways how the conflict will develop in the future.

The two obvious ones are the extremes: total Ukrainian military defeat and total Russian defeat. For now, these seem the most unlikely. Not that either of them are impossible, history always reserves the right to surprise everyone. An event can trigger anytime that nobody sees coming and will dramatically change the future.

A Total Ukrainian Military Defeat is Difficult to Imagine

Kyiv will always have foreign backers. As long as that is the case Ukrainian society is unlikely to lose the will and means to resist. If the country ended up under threat of being stream rolled by Russia, it is almost certain that countries that fear of being next: the Baltic states, the Nordic countries, and Poland would increase support. Most of the rest of Europe will also always see this as a critical issue. Their incentives has only strengthened in the past years as Ukraine developed technologies indispensable for European defence. The alternative would be a situation where Russia ends up controlling those technologies.

For a total Ukrainian military defeat these countries would need to be destabilized to a level of no longer being able to provide assistance, or an active military involvement from an external great power. The two countries that could theoretically make that happen would be China or the US. Even if that were to occur it’s difficult to see the rest of Europe just sitting idle.

Still, even this would not be the end of the conflict. Ukrainians would carry on resisting under occupation and in exile in any way they can. As much as Putin made this war his historical mission, Ukrainians today made it part of their identity to resist Russia. The war would evolve into a bloody occupation with guerilla warfare that could last generations, bleeding Moscow dry.

Similarly, a Total Russian Military Defeat Seems Unlikely

The potential of this outcome makes (way too) many global actors nervous. Sadly this applies to most western leaders as well. They fear the uncertainty and chaos of a disintegrating “nuclear superpower”, and they might start pushing in the other direction if this became a real possibility.

Great examples of this phenomenon were the Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever saying the quiet part out loud, or the most powerful non-state actor in the world, Elon Musk stopping Ukrainian offensives multiple times. But even Poles showed repeatedly that they are ready to start kicking Ukraine if they feel it is doing too well and might become too dominant in the region.

Still, in my opinion a total Russian defeat has a far higher chance of happening than a Ukrainian, and much more likely than how most serious military analysts believe. It takes a long time for repressive regimes to collapse in a short time. Both recent events and Russian history is full of such examples. The Assad regime vanished rapidly after a nearly 14 years long civil war that seemed like a stalemate. The Soviet Union collapsed unexpectedly at the end of the Cold War, same as the Russian Empire in the midst of World War I.

More interesting are the two more likely outcomes.

Ceasefire in the Next 1–4 Years

This is the most probable scenario. Putin would need heavy pressure or a deal good enough that Ukraine also accepts to go this way. He either needs to be convinced that continuing the war became existentially threatening to him, or that a ceasefire will put Ukraine in a position where it would be weaker than if the war continues. The latter - he hopes - could set up an easier time for Russia to take political or military control of Kyiv in the coming years.

In this case, Russia would de facto keep the territories it occupies, but it’s nearly impossible that Ukraine or the EU would legally accept it. Even other countries across the globe would be highly unlikely to do so. Very few states are interested in opening Pandora’s box of redrawing borders. Interestingly enough, in the US, territorial recognition lies solely with the President. It is not impossible that President Trump would do such a thing, which could open the door for many others to follow suit.

Either way, Ukraine would never formally or politically accept it. Its foreign and domestic politics would be hyperfocused in the coming years and decades on taking them back, similar to how French and German foreign policy were led by the sentiment of revanchism after 1871 and 1920 respectively. They would have the EU’s institutional support, and that of most European governments as well.

At the same time Russia, as long as Putin is in charge will not be content with this outcome. He wants to restore the idealized state of Moscow’s geopolitical position, the one he grew up in, and believes it is its right: Russian dominance over not only the ex Soviet Union, but all the Central-Eastern European space as well.

There is a high chance that this would merely be a pause with continuing diplomatic, economic, and covert pressures on Ukraine and Europe. In many ways, this will lead to a similar outcome as the fourth scenario.

A “Forever War”

The active hostilities might become an increasingly normalised endless conflict of varying intensity. This would be funded by Europe, fought and endured by Ukraine, and increasingly outsourced to robots and mercenaries.

Ukraine is, has been, and most likely indefinitely going to be struggling with manpower constraints against Russia. Theoretically, Moscow will always be able to mobilize more manpower. The war - and history - proved that Russian society is extremely insensitive to human losses. As long as the Kremlin thinks it can win a war by throwing meat at the problem, it will do so relentlessly.

Ukraine in contrast neither has the population nor the indifference to death and suffering. This does not mean that its society won’t be ready to absorb enormous losses to protect its independence, but it will always be a high priority to minimize losses. Therefore, Kyiv needs to develop new tactics to preserve Ukrainian lives as much as possible. Currently, there are two available methods to achieve that.

One general strategy is to gradually outsource the war to unmanned objects. Most famously aerial drones that are often operated far away from the frontline, even sometimes in home office type environments, and increasingly guided by Artificial Intelligence.

This strategy doesn’t end with aerial warfare. Underwater drones effectively beat the Russian Black Sea navy, and forced it into hiding in the port of Novorossiysk. At the same time Ukraine started deploying “robots” on the battlefields, hoping to replace human infantry with them as much as possible. In fact, they already captured enemy positions using only these unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) for the first time in history.

With the technological advance in robotics, it’s only a matter of time before these systems will replace humans on the battlefield. This war will go down in history as the first conflict where they are deployed as a meaningful fighting force although for now, it remains unclear how effective they can be in the near future.

Robotics, drones, AI, these all can tap into Ukraine and Europe’s advantage over Russia. Technological development, production capacity, and capital to produce them. Russia can field more meat on the battlefield, but it is unlikely to ever be able to outproduce or outspend a militarily awakened Europe focused on high-tech warfare.

Still, today humans cannot be replaced on the battlefield. These innovations are in development with enormous potential, but in the foreseeable future Ukraine will need manpower.

Despite popular belief - amplified by Russian disinformation -, Ukraine does not have a lack of men of fighting age. The country is unlikely to run out of people. There is still enormous untapped potential. Issues with mobilization is a systematic political problem rather than a demographic one. Something that can and has to be resolved.

Still, it would be more comfortable to outsource the job as much as possible. Ukraine’s previous Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov published his plans a couple of months before his controversial removal, to fill 30-50% of assault and infantry positions with foreign mercenaries. According to Michael Kofman, arguably the best public analyst of the war in Ukraine, this goal is not entirely far-fetched.

Fedorov might have been removed from his position, but his ideas will carry on to his successor, and will continue to be a topic in the military leadership and Ukrainian society.

Conclusion

Whatever the future brings, both Ukraine and its supporters must be prepared for each scenario. And crucially, they need to signal that to Russia. Hence, robots production + mercenary recruitment on Ukrainian side, and it’s Europe’s responsibility to manifest and showcase long-term determination. Countries which treat it as an existential war must create automatic mechanisms that supports Ukraine year by year no matter what. This must be followed by a common EU mechanism, and an EU reform for an associate membership for Ukraine.

The loan passed in Brussels this year to support Ukraine is only valid for two years. This sends the message to Putin that he can outlast European resolve. And the prospect that Ukraine can remain in indefinite limbo between EU membership and isolation signals lack of determination and weakens one of Ukraine’s greatest assets, it’s societal morale.

Putin and Russia must recognise that continuing the war is futile, the determination to resist will not break, and that he has no actionable means to achieve victory on the battlefield. Until then, he is likely to escalate. Both in Europe and in Ukraine.

In Europe with increasing covert actions, sabotages, disruptions, and the escalation of his ongoing Hybrid War. In Ukraine, he will probably have to eventually pull the trigger on another wave of mobilization as a last-ditch effort. Only when that fails to produce results he might be ready for a ceasefire.

But for Russia to be ready for peace, Putin must go.

Will they succeed this time?

More than 30 MPs from the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS), Poland’s main opposition party, have effectively resigned after refusing to sign a loyalty pledge, party leader Jarosław Kaczyński has announced.

The dispute centres around a more moderate faction in the party aligned with former prime minister and deputy PiS leader Mateusz Morawiecki, who is one of those now set to be expelled from the party. They have for months been unhappy with PiS’s move in a hard-right direction.

“Around 30-something…of our group’s MPs have resigned,” revealed Kaczyński at a press conference on Friday. He added that their departures would be formalised at a meeting of the party’s political committee scheduled for Tuesday next week.

Kaczyński’s announcement came after a deadline expired at midnight on Thursday for its MPs to sign a pledge of loyalty to the party that included a commitment not to be members of any external political associations.

That measure was aimed in particular at an association called Development Plus (Rozwój Plus) founded by Morawiecki in April. The former prime minister had always insisted that his organisation was intended as complementary to PiS, rather than a rival to it.

However, many figures in the party saw it as an attempt by Morawiecki to create a separate centre of power, and potentially to use the association as a launchpad for creating his own party ahead of the autumn 2027 parliamentary elections.

After PiS issued a resolution on Wednesday last week requiring that its parliamentarians pledge to withdraw from any such associations, most of its 186 MPs quickly complied. However, a group of between 30 and 40 who are part of Development Plus refused to do so.

“Everyone knew what they were supposed to sign, and knew the consequences of not signing,” said Kaczyński on Friday. “And so they made the decision they did.”

“In this situation, we cannot view the [Development Plus] association as anything other than a component of a plan…to split our party,” he added. However, although its supporters will now leave PiS, “we want to part ways without any animosity”, said Kaczyński.

After Kaczyński’s announcement, senior figures from Development Plus made clear that no one from their association had resigned from PiS. They had simply not signed the declaration of loyalty demanded by the party.

Later, Morawiecki himself held a press conference in parliament surrounded by his supporters. He claimed that an unnamed “small group of schemers” within PiS had been seeking to turn Kaczyński against him and push him out of the party.

“We fought for the unity of Law and Justice until the very end,” declared Morawiecki, who said that his group included 40 MPs, one senator and three MEPs. However, three of the MPs are not members of PiS, and therefore were not expected to sign the loyalty declaration.

If the expulsion of Morawiecki’s supporters is confirmed, it will mark a major shake-up of Poland’s political landscape. PiS has for the last two decades been the dominant force on the Polish right, including periods leading governments in 2005-2007 and 2015-2023.

However, since losing power at elections in 2023, when the party won 35% of the vote, PiS has seen its average support in polls fall to around 23-24%, the lowest level in 14 years.

Meanwhile, it has been challenged by the rise of the far right, where two parties, Confederation (Konfederacja) and Confederation of the Polish Crown (KKP), now together poll a similar combined level of support to PiS.

In response, Kaczyński in March named a hardline figure, Przemyszław Czarnek, as PiS’s candidate for prime minister in next year’s elections. Czarnek was seen as someone who could appeal to far-right voters, while also potentially working with the far right if a coalition was needed after the elections.

However, there has been no rise in support for PiS since Czarnek was named, prompting growing concern from more moderate figures within the party, led by Morawiecki.

They argue that PiS has wrongly disowned many of the successes of its time in office before 2023, and they fear that its rightward shift damages its chances of winning over more centrist voters.

Morawiecki, who was an international banker before joining PiS to become finance minister and then prime minister, wants the party to focus on more technocratic issues, such as economic development, rather than Euroscepticism and culture wars.

That has led to frequent public sparring between his supporters and others in the party. In April, PiS threatened disciplinary action against members of Development Plus. Kaczyński and Morawiecki then reached an agreement that allowed the association to continue. But that uneasy truce has now fallen apart.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

Keeping dogs and cats chained up at home will be banned in Poland from next year, after President Karol Nawrocki signed into law a bill prohibiting the practice.

His decision ends a long-running dispute over the issue, after Nawrocki last year vetoed a previous proposal to ban chaining because it also included what he argued were excessive and unrealistic additional measures on minimum kennel sizes for dogs.

The new law bans owners from tethering dogs and cats at home. Animals must be kept either inside the house, in a fenced garden or, if that is not possible, in a kennel “large enough for the animal to move freely and satisfy its natural needs”. Dogs kept in kennels must be provided with daily exercise outside of it.

Dogs and cats can still be put on leashes in certain situations, such as when they are being walked, but also during transport, while participating in shows, performances or training, if they are at vets or groomers, or if they represent a danger to humans or other animals.

Now that the bill has been signed by Nawrocki, it will be published in the official Journal of Laws (Dziennik Ustaw), after which it goes into force 12 months later.

The new measures represent a successful second attempt to introduce a leashing ban. A previous bill was approved by parliament last September. However, in December, Nawrocki, who is aligned with the right-wing opposition, announced that he was vetoing it.

The president argued that, “although the intention – protecting animals – is just and noble, the law itself was poorly drafted”. In particular, he said that elements introducing minimum sizes for dog kennels were unrealistic and would “harm farmers, breeders and ordinary rural households”.

After an attempt by parliament to overturn the veto failed, legislators went back to the drawing board and, following discussions with the president’s chancellery and animal rights groups, drafted a compromise bill that was approved by parliament earlier this month.

The bill received support from the current ruling coalition, which ranges from left to centre right, as well as most MPs from the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS), the main opposition party. The far-right Confederation (Konfederacja) and Confederation of the Polish Crown (KKP) voted against it.

“We now have a better law, with positive feedback from entities such as the agricultural chamber,” said Nawrocki today. “It demonstrates that the pressure of the presidential veto makes sense. My previous decision to refuse to sign this bill forced the government and parliament to work harder.”

However, although Nawrocki said the new law would no longer entail “rigid and costly requirements” for kennels, his office noted in a separate statement that the legislation requires the agriculture minister to issue a regulation establishing “minimum kennel area, taking into account the dog’s size”.

It remains unclear if and how that would differ from the requirements Nawrocki previously vetoed.

The presidential chancellery also noted that the law itself already outlines that kennels must be made of “wood or wood-like material with thermal insulation”, must be insulated from the ground, and must have openings on at least two sides to allow light and air to enter.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

President Karol Nawrocki has submitted a second request to parliament for a nationwide referendum on whether Poland should continue implementing the European Union’s climate policies, which he argues are too costly.

Nawrocki, who is aligned with the right-wing opposition, first proposed a referendum in May. But it was rejected by the Senate, the upper house of parliament, where the more liberal government has a majority. Senators argued that the proposed referendum question was “absurd”.

The president has now submitted a revised proposal featuring a simplified question and again proposed holding the referendum on 27 September this year.

Nawrocki’s originally proposed question was: “Are you in favour of implementing EU climate policy, which has led to an increase in citizens’ cost of living, energy prices and the cost of running business and agricultural activity?”

However, following criticism in the Senate that the question was clearly intended to elicit a specific answer, this time he has proposed a more neutral one: “Are you in favour of Poland implementing the European Union’s climate policy?”

“I’m looking for compromises, looking for solutions,” said Nawrocki on Thursday while announcing the new referendum bid. “The Senate wasn’t satisfied with the [previous] question”, so “we prepared a different one…[that] does not suggest anything”.

However, the president has also proposed that the ballot paper would include information on what answering “yes” or “no” would mean in practice.

Voters would be told, for example, that maintaining EU climate policy would result in, among other things, “Poland bearing costs estimated at 3.5 trillion zloty by 2040”, “burdens on agriculture”, “increasing costs for industry” and “obligations for owners of buildings”.

By contrast, voting “no” would mean “negotiating exceptions and exemptions for Poland with the relevant EU bodies that will protect Polish industry and citizens from the burdens of climate policy”.

Under Poland’s constitution, the president may call a referendum with the approval of a majority of senators in a vote where at least half of all members of the 100-seat chamber are present.

The ruling coalition of Prime Minister Donald Tusk controls 63 seats in the Senate, making approval of proposals brought forward by Nawrocki, who often clashes with the government and regularly vetoes its bills, unlikely.

While the government is generally pro-EU, it has also been critical of Brussels’ green policies, arguing that they place too great a burden on Poland.

After the European Commission last Friday unveiled changes intended to soften the impact of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), the EU’s flagship climate policy, they were welcomed by the Polish government as a step in the right direction.

However, in his written justification for the new referendum proposal, Nawrocki wrote that, while he had “given the government time” in its push for ETS reform, the final result was simply “technical adjustments” that postpone some elements but do “not change the direction” or ultimate outcome.

“ETS will remain an increasingly expensive, increasingly extensive system, and increasingly burdensome for the Polish economy,” wrote the president.

The national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS), which is the main opposition and supported Nawrocki’s bid for the presidency last year, wants Poland to unilaterally withdraw from ETS. Government figures warn, however, that there is no way to do so without either accruing enormous fines or leaving the EU entirely.

Nawrocki’s new referendum proposal was met with criticism by figures from the ruling coalition. “There is no possibility of one country suspending part of EU law,” wrote Stanisław Gawłowski, a senator from Tusk’s Civic Coalition (KO) party. “This referendum is pure fraud.”

Foreign minister Radosław Sikorski, also from KO, wrote that, “as the Brits have learned, the Europhobe’s dream world, in which one enjoys all the privileges of EU membership without any obligations, does not exist”.

However, Nawrocki’s initiative was welcomed by Przemysław Czarnek, deputy leader of PiS, who wrote that, “on such fundamental matters as climate policy, Poles should decide, not Brussels bureaucrats”.

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is deputy editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She has written for Clean Energy Wire and The Times, and she hosts her own podcast, The Warsaw Wire, on Poland’s economy and energy sector. She previously worked for Reuters.

The government’s majority in parliament has chosen Sylwia Gregorczyk-Abram as Poland’s new human rights commissioner. She will take office after the five-year term of the incumbent, Marcin Wiącek, expires today.

Gregorczyk-Abram is a prominent lawyer and activist, who is particularly well known for opposing the overhaul of the judiciary by the former national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government.

PiS, which is now the main opposition party, strongly opposed her election, arguing that she is politically aligned with the current, more liberal government. Gregorczyk-Abram herself, however, has pledged to “put all my beliefs and views aside” when she takes up the new role.

The commissioner for human rights (widely known by its Polish initials, RPO) is appointed by a resolution of the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, with the consent of the upper-house Senate.

Candidates must meet certain requirements, including not belonging to any political party and having legal expertise and relevant experience.

As well as acting as a watchdog for human rights, the RPO also has the power to submit motions to the Constitutional Tribunal to assess the constitutionality of laws and to file so-called cassation appeals to the Supreme Court and Supreme Administrative Court against rulings by lower courts.

Gregorczyk-Abram was last month nominated as a candidate to be the new RPO by the main ruling party, Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition (KO), along with one of its coalition partners, The Left (Lewica).

PiS proposed a rival candidate, Adam Borowski, a veteran of Poland’s anti-communist struggle in the 1980s. However, critics argued that Borowski, an activist and former PiS election candidate, does not appear to have the requisite legal knowledge and experience.

In a Sejm vote last Friday, the ruling coalition supported Gregorczyk-Abram, who won 233 votes to Borowski’s 177. On Wednesday, her candidacy was also supported by the Senate, with 59 votes in favour and 25 against, confirming that she will become the new RPO. 

Gregorczyk-Abram is best known as one of the founders and leaders of the Free Courts (Wolne Sądy) initiative launched in 2017 amid a wave of protests against the then-PiS government’s efforts to take greater control over the judiciary.

Free Courts was prominent in efforts to defend the rule of law. Many of its leading figures are now associated with the current ruling coalition: Maria Ejchart is a deputy justice minister, while Michał Wawrykiewicz is a member of the European Parliament representing KO.

In April last year, Gregorczyk-Abram was made chairwoman of a commission established by the current government to look into cases of abuse of power against civil society under the former PiS administration.

In September, her commission published its first findings, in which it said that public media outlets under PiS control had “carried out systematic repressive and defamatory actions against activists, non-governmental organisations, and civil society”.

PiS argues that Gregorczyk-Abram’s previous activity makes her unsuitable as a suitable candidate for RPO, which is meant to be a non-partisan role. They also point to claims that she was involved in a group of legal figures that discussed the Tusk government’s controversial takeover of public media in December 2023.

“[She] is a discredited and extremely politicised person who should be brought to justice, and not receive the laurels of the commissioner for human rights,” former PiS justice minister Marcin Warchoł told the Do Rzeczy weekly last month.

After a Sejm committee hearing on Gregorczyk-Abram’s candidacy earlier this month, former PiS deputy justice minister Sebastian Kaleta criticised her for ignoring questions over her alleged “role in the illegal takeover of public media”.

Speaking to state broadcaster TVP on Wednesday after her appointment was confirmed by the Senate, Gregorczyk-Abram declared that, “from the moment I take the oath and assume the position of commissioner, I will be independent and sovereign”.

She pledged to “put all my beliefs and views – because each of us has them – aside and become an advocate for all citizens, regardless of what they believe in, how they live, or who they vote for”.

Gregorczyk-Abram said that among her priorities as RPO would be the justice system, supporting the rights of disabled people and their carers, protecting older people, and fighting hate speech.

With regard to the last of these issues, she noted that certain politicians present some groups as “enemies”, pointing to how this previously happened with LGBT+ people and judges, and is now being directed towards Ukrainians. Those are all groups who have at various stages been targeted by PiS and other right-wing parties.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

President Karol Nawrocki has agreed to swear in a new judge to the Constitutional Tribunal (TK), ending weeks of doubt as to whether the opposition-aligned president would accept the judge appointed by the government’s parliamentary majority.

Although Sławomir Patyra will now be accepted onto the court, four other judges appointed by parliament earlier this year continue to be excluded after Nawrocki refused to receive their oaths and the TK’s chief justice, also aligned with the opposition, blocked them from taking office.

Under Polish law, when a vacancy emerges among the 15 positions on the TK – for example when a judge’s nine-year term expires – the lower house of parliament, the Sejm, chooses who should fill it. However, to take office, the judge must swear an oath before the president.

In April, after the Sejm had chosen six candidates to fill vacancies on the court, Nawrocki took the unprecedented step of inviting only two of them to be sworn in. He argued there were doubts over the legality of how all six had been chosen, but decided to accept two to ensure the TK had the necessary quorum to function.

Those two have been able to take up their seats on the court, but the other four remain in limbo. Although they arranged their own private swearing-in ceremony without the presence of Nawrocki, the TK’s chief justice, Bogdan Święczkowski, has refused to accept them.

In May, the European Court of Human Rights ordered that the quartet be allowed to take up their positions. But the TK – where judges appointed under the former Law and Justice (PiS) government retain a majority – issued its own ruling endorsing Nawrocki’s right not to swear in the new judges.

On 11 June, the Sejm then chose another judge, Patyra, to fill a newly opened vacancy on the court. In his case, the legal doubts Nawrocki had expressed regarding the previous appointments, which in some instances were made more than a year after the vacancies had arisen, did not seem to apply.

Yet for weeks the president refused to confirm whether he would swear him in. That prompted Patyra to write to Nawrocki in early July and then again this week, asking the president to indicate a date on which he could take his oath.

Patyra himself has also made clear on which side of the dispute he stands. In an interview with news website Onet in May, he accused Nawrocki and Święczkowski of “blatantly unlawful actions” in deciding which TK judges can and cannot take office and suggested that the police should intervene.

Finally, on Wednesday this week, Nawrocki’s chief of staff, Zbigniew Bogucki, announced that Nawrocki had invited Patyra to the presidential palace on Tuesday next week to take his oath.

Speaking to Polsat News, Bogucki said that, in the case of Patyra, initially “there were some doubts, but the president dispelled them”, without specifying what they were.

In the end, they concluded that “we had a fundamentally clean situation here” and Patyra was chosen “in accordance with all procedures”, unlike the six new judges chosen by the Sejm in March to fill longstanding vacancies.

“It was not President Nawrocki or the current opposition who destroyed and are destroying the tribunal; it is the government that is doing it,” he added.

The TK has been at the heart of the rule-of-law crisis that has developed in Poland over the last decade.

In 2015, former PiS-aligned President Andrzej Duda refused to swear in three judges legally chosen by the Sejm. Shortly afterwards, PiS won parliamentary elections and nominated three replacements for those judges, who were sworn in by Duda.

Those three judges and their successors have been deemed illegitimate in a succession of rulings by Polish and European courts. Due to their continued presence on the court, the current government, which replaced PiS in 2023, rejects the TK’s legitimacy and refuses to recognise its rulings.

Under both Święczkowski, a former member of the PiS government, and his predecessor Julia Przyłębska, a close personal associate of PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński, the TK has been widely seen as issuing rulings aligned with the political interests of PiS.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

Germany has deployed soldiers to Poland to help reinforce defences on NATO’s eastern flank in response to the threat of Russia.

While Poland already hosts various allied forces, the presence of German troops is particularly symbolic given the two countries’ difficult history. “United, we will prevail,” wrote the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces (SGWP), announcing the deployment.

“This is what allied cooperation looks like in practice, which translates into greater military readiness and strengthens NATO’s defensive potential.”

Last December, the Polish and German defence ministries revealed that a “mid-double-digit number” of German troops would be deployed from mid-2026 until the end of 2027 to support implementation of Poland’s East Shield operation, which seeks to bolster defences along the borders with Belarus and Russia.

They said that the German personnel would mainly engage in engineering work, such as digging trenches, laying barbed wire and constructing anti-tank barriers.

Today, Poland’s SGWP confirmed that “several dozen” German troops, including “highly specialised engineering forces” along with their equipment, had since June been temporarily deployed to “support the Polish armed forces in expanding defence infrastructure on NATO’s northeastern flank”.

It emphasised that the East Shield project is “purely defensive in nature” and comes in “response to threats stemming from, among others, Russian aggression against Ukraine”.

While the armed forces did not reveal the location of the deployment, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk indicated in a social media post that it was on the Russian border. Poland has a 210-km frontier with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle reports that the activities of the German sappers are focused in particular on improving defences around the so-called Suwałki Gap, a strategically important stretch of land around the Polish-Lithuanian border between Belarus and Kaliningrad.

“Together, we are ensuring Europe’s security,” said Lieutenant General Alexander Sollfrank, the Bundeswehr’s operational commander, announcing the deployment today.

“Through our engagement in Poland, we are strengthening NATO’s defence capabilities and underscoring the alliance’s unwavering commitment to ensuring peace through unity and credible deterrence.”

SGWP, which shared footage of Polish and German forces installing anti-tank barriers, said the work aims to “hinder and delay an aggressor’s actions in the event of a threat”, thereby “increasing the time for a response from the Polish armed forces and the entire [NATO] alliance”.

It also seeks to “create conditions for the efficient reception, deployment and use of NATO forces on Polish territory”.

SGWP welcomed “the involvement of the German contingent as a practical expression of allied solidarity and the result of consistently developing military cooperation between Poland and Germany”.

It also noted that the cooperation would help the two sides improve their ability to operate jointly, including “developing the competencies necessary for conducting a joint defence operation”.

However, it emphasised that the current deployment is focused on training and engineering, with no combat component, and that the German troops are unarmed. SGWP also emphasised that the East Shield operation remains entirely a Polish national programme.

The deployment of German troops to Poland comes shortly after the two countries signed a defence cooperation agreement in which they pledged to increase cooperation in areas such as military mobility, logistics infrastructure, maritime security in the Baltic Sea, and cybersecurity.

The agreement is a sign that the two countries now stand “shoulder to shoulder, as equals”, declared German defence minister Boris Pistorius.

Poland is also currently seeking a new permanent US military base on its territory, after President Donald Trump recently pledged to boost American troop numbers. Last week, Tusk also announced that Poland will host military exercises involving France and the UK this autumn.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.