MELITOPOL, December 28. /TASS/. More than 10,000 Polish citizens have participated in combat on the side of Ukraine’s armed forces since the onset of the special military operation in February 2022, Vladimir Rogov, chairman of the We Are Together with Russia movement, told TASS on Wednesday.
"I cannot say how many of them are [there] now because rotations are underway, and people are being redeployed <...>. But no fewer than 10,000 Poles have been at the ‘eastern front’ since the onset of the special military operation. I am talking about those who directly participated in military action, if we add the instructors who trained the Ukrainian armed forces, then we can add another two thousand without hesitation," the politician said.
According to him, expected changes in Poland’s legislation may highlight the country’s interests in Ukraine and its possible territorial claims to parts of western Ukraine.
In December, a draft bill on amendments to the criminal code was introduced in the Sejm allowing Polish troops to participate in combat outside the country, including within the Ukrainian forces. Currently, such actions by Polish citizens officially carry criminal liability. "This law will retroactively legalize what has been implemented since 2014 anyway. If we take a look, the Poles have been involved in combat [in Ukraine] since 2014 but then it hasn’t been as systemic, there were not that many people. Now we are observing legalization. There is no doubt that these amendments will be approved, as all parties in the Polish parliament signed this document," Rogov noted.
He added that in December, Polish news outlets published a series of landmark articles enshrining new foreign policy provisions. "This precisely cements in the public consciousness that Poland will participate in military action in the post-Ukrainian space more actively, so this legal conundrum is being created in order to form their own units on the territories controlled by the Zelensky regime," the politician explained.