Poland charges former official who declassified plan for the nation’s defense
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish prosecutors filed charges Friday against a former defense minister, accusing him of exceeding his powers when he declassified parts of a plan for national defense that had been prepared years before under an earlier government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Tusk’s government has accused the former defense minister, Mariusz Błaszczak, of betraying national interests by revealing military secrets for political gain ahead of a national election.
“If we were to imagine the basic task of a spy in Poland, the theft of defense plans would be his priority, but no one predicted that such a role could be played by the minister of national defense,” the current deputy defense minister, Cezary Tomczyk, said last month in parliament.
Błaszczak served as defense minister in a national conservative government that held power from 2015-2023. In 2023 he made public parts of a military defense plan that had been drawn up in 2011. The document laid out plans for the Polish army to retreat westward to the Vistula River, which runs through the center of Poland, in case of an invasion from the east by Russia.
Błaszczak was read the charges at the District Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw on Friday, he told reporters afterward, according to the state news agency PAP.
He said he believed the allegations were unfounded.
He wrote on X that he was being charged for”declassifying the plan of the first Tusk government to give up half of Poland without a fight.”
“I would do it again without hesitation. I had not only the right, but also the duty” he said.
“Thanks to this, Poles know the truth about the fate you prepared for the inhabitants of Eastern Poland,” he said, addressing Tusk. “Thanks to this, no one will ever return to such plans.”
