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Notes -
Russian rockets crossed over the Polish border, killing two farmers.
Polish government official says national security meeting was called due to "emergency situation"
Pentagon is ' aware '
https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-11-15-22/index.html
This stirred something in me that is rarely stirred (I was born in Poland). Some sort of patriotic anger. The Poles, along with the former Soviet states and most of Eastern Europe, absolutely loathe the Russians.
I imagine this isn't enough to send in the troops - but I could see myself reading a history book in 30 years about how Poland, and by extension, everyone else, were pulled into the Great Russian War by a bomb and two dead farmers.
Edit: Russia calls it provocation that Poland stated this
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/world/2022/11/16/Russia-says-Polish-statements-of-Russian-missiles-hitting-its-territory-provocation-
Yesterday there have been talks between Foreign Intelligence Service head Naryshkin and CIA's Burns in Ankara.
Today Russia kills (allegedly; confirmations and details pending – maybe it's another AA intercept gone wrong or whatever; though frankly wouldn't change in terms of culpability) some farmers in Poland, finally making progress towards *CredibleDefense's Article 5 memes.
I am not sure if those events are connected, but it wouldn't surprise me if they were. Anyway, expecting retaliations in the form of, oh I dunno, cancellation of my residence permit. Probably, hopefully, not explicit WWIII yet.
Condolences about the dead civilians, if this is confirmed. While this war as a whole is grossly irrational on Russian part, attacking Poland certainly sends it to another level of idiocy.
Incidentally, just the other day I saw a burly Polish man just randomly fuming in public before Turks about how much he hates Russians (Germans too) and Russian language, to the point he wouldn't talk to his (Ukrainian I guess?) GF in Russian, despite that being the only language they both know well, their English being broken (Polish and Ukrainian are highly mutually intelligible though). Guess he wanted to provoke someone. The degree of loathing was just incredible and on par with Azeri-Armenian tension. Poles sure are patriotic and raring to go.
What's with the extreme Polish seething relative to other post-Soviet states? The most irrationally hateful anti-Russian posters I see online are Polish. Many Eastern European countries suffered under the Soviets, but AFAIK there wasn't anything uniquely awful about Poland's experience? Perhaps "Russian Oppression" has just become central in their national historical narrative in a way that it has not in other Eastern European countries? Like slavery for Black Americans, the Japanese occupation for Korea, the "Century of Humiliation" for China, etc.
Have you been paying attention to Eastern Europe? At all?
While Western Europe's smaller states tore each other to part in the early modern period, Eastern Europe saw itself consolidate into several larger realms. While the various people of Eastern Europe were ruled over by the Russians, Turks, and Austrian Germans, Western Europe saw the development of the nation-state, of nationalism, and of the national boundaries you see today. Through consolidating our nations here in Western Europe while the Eastern Europeans still had to deal with various empires, we ended up settling border disputes one by one, war after bloody war, with that mostly having come to an end after Germany reunified itself. Tellingly, the part of Western Europe that does still have a violent border dispute in living memory, Northern Ireland, is itself in one of its younger nations. The Irish just haven't had the time to figure that out as long as the rest of us did.
None of this applies to Eastern Europe. The Poles and Lithuanians look at the commonwealth they used to have before cursing Stalin's name, if they aren't brawling over just what should be whose instead. Hungary has people bitching about Slovaks 'having no culture' and clearly just being Hungarians in all but name and being rightfully theirs, if they aren't going on about Transylvania and Szekelyföld instead. Yugoslavia, Moldova, the other Baltics, and even such forgotten peoples as the Rusyn: they have not had as long to practice their nationalism, at all, and are in effect playing catch-up with the rest of the continent where that is concerned.
tl;dr: Poles are European as much as anyone else here is. Nothing weird to be seen here.
Did you read my comment? At all? Climb down off the righteous indignation. I asked:
Key point being "relative to other post-Soviet states." Many Eastern European countries have unresolved border disputes. So what? That doesn't explain at all why I have observed Polish posters writing way more genocidal, warmongering stuff towards Russians compared to other former Eastern bloc nations.
There's a shitload of Poles compared to most other Eastern European nations, they have beef with the Russians in a way Croats or Hungarians don't, and they - the ones in Germany, the UK, and other nations especially - tend to pop up in places other Russophobic randos also don't.
I think that's a reasonable explanation. Thank you.
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