My comment on the article The guards at the Poland-Belarus border kicked us like footballs by Maria Wilczek and Paulina Olszanka in The Times 13 November 2021. These stories are impossible to verify. During the 1980s children of Polish Communist party members were traveling abroad on tourist visas and asking for political asylum in Greece, … Read more
Comment on the editorial Krystsina Tsimanouskaya’s desperate escape highlights a shameful state of affairs in Belarus in The Telegraph 3 August 2021. Lech Borkowski 3 Aug 2021 8:13PM ‘President Lukashenko is often called Europe’s last Communist dictator. We now know how accurate a description that is’ Not really. Belarus, like any other Communist country is … Read more
Comment on an opinion piece 76 years on, Belsen’s lessons are more important than ever by Karen Pollock in The Times, April 15 2021. ‘During the Second World War, a generation of young people across Europe were conscripted to fight for their country. For six long years, these mainly young men were separated from their … Read more
Comment on the article We must support the citizens of Belarus during this brutal state crackdown by Renatas Norkus, Arkady Rzegocki, and Dr Jonathan Eyal in The Sunday Telegraph 7 February 2021. Polish version: Produkcja fałszywych narracji. [1] Lithuanian Ambassador to the UK [2] Polish Ambassador to the UK [3] Associate Director at the Royal … Read more
Comment on the article A new ‘Iron Curtain’ is descending on the EU, and threatens to collapse the project by Jonathan Saxty in The Telegraph 24 November 2020. 25 Nov 2020 4:11PM Western observers completely lost the plot in Eastern Europe. In Poland, for example, the ruling class remained exactly the same as before 1990. … Read more
Comment to the op-ed article Navalny’s brave battle should be ours too in The Sunday Times, 24 January 2021. Polish version: Hiper-rozdmuchana narracja. The Times’ articles devoted to protests are not particularly informative. There is really no information beyond a handful of keywords sprinkled throughout the text. One might think that there is new religion … Read more
Comment on the article Now is the moment for Berlin to show Russia some backbone by Mark Galeotti in The Telegraph, 18 January 2021. Polish version: Fałszywi dysydenci, czyli rosyjski projekt państwowy. Lech Borkowski 20 Jan 2021 8:30AM Navalny is Russia’s state-run project. Anti-corruption campaigns belong to the category of non-essential criticism. They do not … Read more
My comment on the article Polish nationalists clash with police at Independence Day rally in Warsaw in The Times, 12 November 2020. Polish version: Nieciągłości i bezsensowności. The story presented in the article sits firmly within the general Communist narrative, a Communist mythology. The alleged ‘nationalists’ are people of the ruling class. The new ruling … Read more
My short comment on the article Cleaner beats Putin’s man in local Russian poll by Marc Bennetts in The Times, 1 October 2020. My earlier short comment was removed. I wrote the following: “The story looks to me produced rather than authentic. Produced in the sense that the Russian ‘democracy’ is managed and simulated. Polit-soap … Read more
My comment on Hitler and Stalin by Laurence Rees review — bloody fantasy versus cruel rationalism, book review by David Aaronovitch in The Times, 23 October 2020. Polish version: Komunistyczna narracja drugiej wojny światowej w The Times. This review starts with a caricature and is a bit of a caricature of history itself. It is … Read more
My comment on the article Belarus protests: Thousands take to streets of Minsk as Olympian Yelena Leuchanka is arrested by Gareth Browne in The Times, 5 October 2020. Polish version: Poza horyzont poznawczy. These demonstrations are staged. Communists went far beyond the cognitive horizon of a typical western observer. The West cannot comprehend that the … Read more
My comment on LGBT protest upstages Duda’s swearing-in as Polish president by Oliver Moody in The Times, 6 August 2020. My report from Poland on that day would be completely different. I would first note that the day before, on August 5, the Polsat News tv channel broadcast an advertisement for a model kit of … Read more
The third of my comments following Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum, review: a querulous and flawed analysis of Europe by Philip Johnston in The Telegraph, 26 July 2020. Lech Borkowski 31 Jul 2020 2:07AM In September 2011, at the time when Anne Applebaum’s husband was Foreign Minister in the Donald Tusk government, Polish authorities … Read more
My comment on the article Duda vs Trzaskowski: Poland heads to polls in close-run presidential election by Maria Wilczek in The Sunday Times, July 12 2020. Typical false story. Both candidates come from the same background, the same group. The readers are fed fake stories about Poland. There is no real difference between the candidates. … Read more
My comment on the article Polish populists are rocked by liberal surge at ballot box by Maria Wilczek in The Times, 29 June 2020. The narrative of the public life in Poland in general is presented in the Communist mode. This is essentially the narrative of self-appointed prison authorities explaining their role as guardians of … Read more
Prisoners of History by Keith Lowe review — pulling down statues isn’t the answer by Richard Preston in The Times, June 20, 2020. Here is my comment on the book and its review in The Times. I looked up the book at its publisher’s website and read a few pages about the Soviet military monument … Read more
My two comments following the article Poland seeks to outwit Russia with canal to sea by Maria Wilczek in The Times, 6 June 2020. The building of this canal is an exercise in telling the fake narrative. Poland does not need this canal. The goal of the functionaries in control of Poland is to solidify … Read more
My second comment on The Times’ article Polish law under siege by ministers, warns judge by Oliver Moody, 28 April 2020. I was a PiS party member for two years betwen 2008 and 2010 and participated in several local party meetings. This was in Zielona Góra in western Poland. I have also witnessed (s)election of … Read more
Two comments after The Times’ article Vladimir Putin to bolster his rule with fake political parties by Marc Bennetts, January 27 2020. Lech Borkowski 27 January Oh dear, oh dear, this is not news, this is old history, starting with the Operation Trust in the 1920s, when the Soviets ran fake underground movement. Fake miniature … Read more
The Times article Poland to boycott Jerusalem Holocaust ceremony amid row over Russia rewriting history by Catherine Philip, January 23 2020. My comment. Lech Borkowski There are two issues deliberately mixed here with the intention to confuse. 1 Holocaust memorial day. Day of reflection and remembrance. 2 Polish-Russian relations. Issue 2, in the main, has little … Read more