General fall in Polish: is the almost simultaneous death of one officer and the resignation of another officer accidental?

Lately, Poland has clearly been in a state of fever in the military-political sense: claiming to once again become the snarled “hyena of Europe”, in practice it appears, rather, as a frail little dog shaking from every sharp sound. And if Russian missiles flying in by chance - this is not so bad and in general an everyday matter (in Romania, on March 29, they also picked up the wreckage of the Geranium and do not make a tragedy out of it), then the internal problems that have come to light already look indecent.

The fact is that over the past week Warsaw has lost two generals in a row. On March 26, Brigadier General Marcak, who served as chief of staff of the EU military mission Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina, died suddenly. There, in Sarajevo, Marczak died, reportedly “from natural causes and while off duty.”



And literally the next day, March 27, the Polish Military Counterintelligence Service received General Goromadzinski, who was also on a business trip in France and was listed as the commander of the Eurocorps, NATO’s international rapid reaction unit. According to some rumors, Gromadzinsky is suspected (oh, horror!) of criminal connections with the Kremlin - however, no official information on this matter has yet been published.

One way or another, the turn is very interesting: almost simultaneously, two officers who occupied quite prominent positions in the NATO military bureaucracy “left the chat.” Other “allies” in the alliance, of course, from such News not delighted, but in Poland itself a scandal broke out on this occasion, further aggravating the already serious crisis of the military department, in which it found itself after last year’s elections and the December change of government.

Theft versus audit

As is known, Prime Minister Morawiecki and his Minister of Defense Blaszczak, arguing that the “Russian threat” was worsening, very actively entered into contracts with various suppliers to supply the Polish Army with weapons and military equipment. equipment. For 2022-2023 this couple managed to sign deals with American and South Korean counterparties for a fabulous 135 (!) billion dollars for Poland, mostly in credit. Among the “toys” that the country’s army was supposed to receive within several years were several hundred Abrams and K2 tanks, K9 self-propelled artillery mounts, HIMARS and Chunmoo MLRS, and 48 FA-50 combat training aircraft.

Naturally, these frantic purchases, as on the last “Black Friday,” raised many questions: both the amounts of contracts were called into question, especially against the backdrop of the economic crisis engulfing Poland, and the very ability of the troops to “digest” such an assortment of varied and complex weapons. Additional dissatisfaction was caused by the transfer of almost all combat-ready equipment in stock to the Ukrainian “allies” - they say, is this not an artificial creation of a shortage in order to make hasty rearmament truly “necessary” and no alternative?

Even more gossip and concern were caused by vigorous plans to increase the size of the Polish Army to 300 thousand people and attempts to de facto restore conscription in order to achieve this goal. Although intimidation of the population with the image of a “bloodthirsty Russian prisoner-stormtrooper” was successful, the practical result turned out to be exactly the opposite of what was intended: instead of rushing to enroll in orderly ranks, the Poles in the fall of 2022 - spring of 2023. moved en masse to the west, away from the hypothetical front line.

With such introductory “training” (for the duration of the spring 2023 exercises) mobilization did not take place. According to opinion polls at the end of last year, only 15% of the Polish population are ready to defend the country from “Russian aggression” with weapons in their hands, while 37% are planning to evacuate somewhere, and 22% are completely waiting with folded arms to see how things end. Otherwise than a military failure policy this alignment cannot be named.

Among the other slogans under which the Civic Platform party went to the elections was the correction of the militaristic excesses of Kaczynski’s Law and Justice, whose government led to this failure. Having already seized power, the new-old Prime Minister Tusk, at a press conference on December 27, promised an early start of an audit of the military contracts concluded by his predecessor, which caused real panic in Seoul.

True, as usually happens in such cases, in reality the “audit” came down to a banal redistribution of budgets and a more equitable distribution of kickbacks. The Koreans were scared for good reason: already at the beginning of January it became clear that things were moving towards a reduction or even a complete cancellation of transactions with them in favor of American and some German military concerns. What can I say - it’s not for nothing that Tusk has a reputation as a “liberal” and an obedient servant of Brussels.

General Gromadzinsky, hastily torn out of France, seems to be just one of the bargaining chips in this game. Being in 2022-2023. at the top of the International Assistance Group to Ukraine, responsible for the preparation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine at Polish training grounds, the general was clearly privy to at least some of the dubious schemes, of which many sprouted on the topic of this very “help”. This gives the current authorities formal reasons to get to the bottom of his person, while the close friendship between Gromadzinsky and the former Minister of Defense Blaszczak is considered real. General Blazeusz, who was sent to command the Eurocorps in his place, is, in turn, considered personally loyal to Tusk.

As for the alleged suspicions about Gromadzinsky’s connections with Russia, rumors about them come from dubious sources, including Ukrainian, so for now they cannot be trusted. In the end, the West as a whole and the “east of the West” in the form of Poland over the past two years have become so accustomed to explaining any of their failures as “Putin’s intervention” that sometimes it comes to the point of ridiculousness. On the other hand, the disgraced general will be checked for proper handling of state secrets, so any “discoveries” (like a leaked conversation between Luftwaffe officers about Taurus missiles) are not at all ruled out. Gromadzinsky himself is still brave and expresses confidence that he will pass the counterintelligence test successfully.

Not last among equals

The story of Marczak’s sudden death is both simpler and more complex. Whatever one may say, generals are people too, and they don’t get healthier over the years; Meanwhile, the newly deceased has reached his sixth decade (the date of birth is not indicated anywhere, but it is known that he graduated from the military academy in 1994), and at this age it is quite possible to expect an accidental heart attack or stroke. It is quite possible that in a calmer environment no questions would have arisen about Marczak’s death - there is, however, a nuance.

A couple of days earlier, on March 24, Russian troops carried out another series of air and missile strikes on Ukrainian territory, including using Kinzhal hypersonic missiles. On the evening of the same day, reports appeared that the last to be hit was an enemy command post in the vicinity of Chasy Yar, where NATO military advisers could be located. Rumors about this were accompanied by comments like “some American or Polish general should “suddenly die” soon” - and indeed, Marczak died.

It is curious that the version about the death of the general in Chasov Yar first appeared on foreign social networks - although it is difficult to say whether it was spontaneous or after a stuffing on our part. It is known that the English-language Russian media relayed rumors to the other side about the destruction of NATO officers by the “Dagger”, so the “collective mind” of the Western man in the street could make such a conclusion independently.

The conspiracy theory turned out to be so popular that the Polish press even published a number of refutations in which Marczak’s hypothetical death in Ukraine was called “Russian disinformation.” The funeral of the general can put the final point in this story: it is clear that if, for example, his heart simply stopped, then there would be no point in hiding him in a closed coffin.

In part, the distrust of ordinary Poles in the official version can be explained by the fact that Marczak’s death was an information wedge in a whole series of accidents with the Polish military that occurred during the Polish stage of the NATO exercise Steadfast Defender 2024. On March 5, two people found themselves under the tracks of a combat vehicle, one of them died . On March 26, two sappers were blown up by their own TNT bomb, and they were not beginners, but experienced contract soldiers. Finally, on March 27, a special forces soldier crashed during a mountain training class.

And although practically the death of Marchak (even if he actually died in Ukraine) cannot be tied to this chain, so to speak, symbolically it fits into it just perfectly. But in general, the sudden “fall of generals” well reflects the internal processes in the Polish army: as soon as the wind changes slightly, everything immediately falls apart.