Two thirds of Poles fear Poland’s existence threatened by other countries

Poles are increasingly worried about security, with almost two thirds now fearing that Poland’s very existence is threatened by other countries, finds a new poll. Meanwhile, over one third say they would flee in the event of Poland being attacked and 22% would volunteer for service.

The new findings come from research conducted in late April by pollster IBRiS for the Polish Press Agency (PAP). When IBRiS asked respondents if they think any other country threatens Poland’s existence, 63.3% said yes, which was 7.2 percentage points higher than last year. Only 26.6% said no.

When asked what they would do in the event of an attack, only 42.5% said they would try to secure themselves and their relatives in the place where they live, which was down by 14.8 percentage points from last year. Meanwhile, 21.3% said they would flee abroad while 15.4% would seek refuge elsewhere in Poland.

Just over one-fifth, 21.8%, said they would seek to join military, paramilitary or medical formations in response to an attack, which was down from 30.1% last year.

The latest findings are consistent with another poll published last month that showed 18.5% of Poles would flee abroad if Russia invaded, while 14.1% would seek refuge elsewhere in Poland. Just under 11% said they would volunteer for the armed forces and 25% for some other form of public service.

Meanwhile, in its new poll, IBRiS also found that just over half of Poles (50.6%) support allocating more money for defence spending, even at the expense of areas such as healthcare and social programmes. Just under 42% were opposed to that.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Poland has rapidly increased military spending. It expects to spend the equivalent of 4.7% of GDP on defence this year, by far the highest relative level in NATO.

Meanwhile, three quarters of Poles (73.5%) say investments should be made in promoting resilience (for example, by stockpiling food and building shelters) even if it means an increase in the prices of certain goods.

IBRiS also asked respondents what they would personally be willing to sacrifice to defend Poland: 42.8% said money, 16.2% said their health, 14% their life and 2.3% their own life and the lives of their loved ones. Just over 16% said they would not sacrifice anything at all.

Over the last year, there have been a series of acts of sabotage, disinformation and cyberattacks that Poland says were carried out by agents acting on behalf of Russia.

In response to those acts of “hybrid warfare”, Poland last year ordered Russia’s consulate in Poznań to close and expelled the diplomats working there.

Today, the foreign minister announced that he would also close down the Russian consulate in Kraków in response to evidence that Russia was behind a fire that last year destroyed the largest shopping centre in Warsaw.

Last month, Poland announced it and its NATO allies would respond in an “appropriate manner” to upcoming joint Russian-Belarusian military exercises in Belarus. The last such manoeuvres, held in 2021, were later seen by experts as part of Moscow’s preparations for invading Ukraine.

Main image credit: Combat Camera Poland (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)