“One must remember that a war may begin with such a combined attack. That is, first a mass of balloons appears, cheap drones, and then the actual means of attack. Or everything at once. Here, everything would depend on the adopted tactics…” said the head of the station, Editor-in-Chief Tomasz Sakiewicz, speaking on TV Republika, referring to findings concerning objects arriving from Belarus.
Earlier today, before noon, the Operational Command of the Armed Forces announced on social media that “during the night, entries of objects into Polish airspace from the direction of Belarus were observed.”
“After conducting detailed analyses, it was determined that these were most likely smuggling balloons, moving in accordance with the direction and speed of the wind,”
the statement reads.
It added: “The flight of all objects was continuously monitored by radar systems. To ensure safety, a portion of the airspace over the Podlaskie Voivodeship was temporarily closed to civilian traffic.”
Only 4 out of 60 found?
According to findings by TV Republika, the number of objects was not small. The figure mentioned is 60, while Polish services reportedly found only a few, probably four, of them.
Sakiewicz: The operation is too large
The matter was commented on air by the head of the Free Speech House station, Editor-in-Chief Tomasz Sakiewicz. As he noted at the outset, “This should be a holiday, festive day, but it seems the Russians are making sure these holidays are not entirely peaceful. So we are here for you to inform and explain what is happening and what the real level of threat is. There is no need to panic, but action is required.”
Asked what the response of the Polish state should be, he indicated that “above all, this operation could not have taken place without the support of a backing organization, that is, Russia. Belarus is entirely dependent on it.”
“The operation is too large and has too great international significance for Lukashenko to allow himself something like this on his own. There is no question of any private smugglers. If private smugglers had undertaken an operation that scrambles armed forces from various sides, both on the NATO side and on the Russian or Belarusian side, I think tomorrow we would hear about a series of deaths in Belarus. There is no way this could have happened without the consent of Russian services. This is an operation of Russian services, meant to have such a cover or smuggling dimension,”
he continued.
He went on to emphasize: “Of course, Russian services are also known for organizing smuggling. Regardless of the true objectives of this operation, it has been embedded since the very beginning of the existence of the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation, a directive to sustain itself through foreign operations. I don’t know whether this still applies 100 percent today, but those were the assumptions behind the work of Russian intelligence. Smuggling became a very important part of financing the activities of the Russian services. But in this case, smuggling, in my opinion, was not the most important element, merely a smokescreen. A test of NATO states’ reaction was carried out, and the ability of Belarus and Russia to disrupt airspace with impunity was demonstrated. Because in reality, we are helpless at this moment in the face of what happened. Astonishing helplessness. And the fact that they were not intercepted, that there is no idea how to intercept these balloons, that they were not found – this reflects poorly…”
Sakiewicz assessed that “the simplest means are the hardest to combat in such a highly complex electronic warfare environment, where there are drones and various digital solutions. These means, theoretically simple – like a balloon – often turn out to be the hardest to counter. Similarly with the simplest drones.”
“It is hard to imagine firing a missile that costs tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars at a balloon that probably costs a few hundred dollars, even taking into account GPS devices,”
he clarified.
“War may begin with a combined attack.”
However, the president of TV Republika drew attention to the fact that “we must remember that war may begin with such a combined attack. That is, first a mass of balloons, cheap drones, and then the actual means of attack. Or everything at once. Here, everything would depend on the adopted tactics…”
And as he stressed, “we must have predefined ways of responding.”
He also pointed to the important role of the Free Speech House media in informing about the threat from Russia over many years.
“We are the only major media outlet that can be a real antidote to Russian propaganda. Why? Because the same people who today brandish accusations in government media that this or that person is ‘pro-Russian’ or works for Russia were, not long ago, persuading others that one should cooperate with Russia, that there is nothing wrong with receiving Putin, treating him as a decent guy, doing business with him. They are completely unreliable – setting aside intellectual capacities, which apparently made it very difficult for them to assess the situation,”
he said.
“Also on the right – there were media that pretended to be on that side and distributed a pro-Russian theme – and they did not bother them. Our milieu, that is, Gazeta Polska and TV Republika, was the only milieu that consistently warned against Putin. But where Putin was really present, for example, through criticism of the ‘Green Deal’ or what was happening at the border. When we supported the ‘wall behind the Polish uniform’ campaign, it was often portrayed, paradoxically, as supporting Russia. Setting aside threads that are hard to comprehend, we are the only major milieu that consistently warned against Russian imperialism, that analyzed the situation well, and in which people with views warning against Russian aggression could always appear, at times when they were not allowed to appear elsewhere. No one else in Poland has such great credibility in this matter,”
he continued.