“In Russians we will throw stones, just like Ewa Kopacz into dinosaurs”

Sławomir Mentzen in the Sejm during the debate on the draft Act on the provision of financing for activities aimed at expanding the capacity of ammunition production, 27 November 2024.

I'm very glad we yet found time to talk about defense, talk about ammunition, prepare for conflict. I am little pleased with the optimism that beats from earlier statements.

We had 10 years to prepare for the conflict since the business of Donbas and Crimea, we had 2.5 years since Russia's attack on Ukraine and unfortunately all this time has been wasted. For the past year, the government has been dealing with beavers, with alcotubs, taking pictures on shafts alternatively of the most crucial things.

According to Donald Tusk from the spring of this year we live in the pre-war era, the head of the BBN said that we have possibly only 3 years to prepare for a confrontation – that is, the situation is truly serious. And now, finally, after so long, we get a bill to aid allocate PLN 3 billion to factories to build ammunition. It would seem that this is very good news, unfortunately the reality looks a bit worse.

Władysław Kosiniak-Kamish said about this bill: It's a groundbreaking bill, a milestone. All resources and forces will be allocated to this ambitious plan. Then let's see what ambition our rulers have. Our current production capacity, and in fact to deposit artillery from abroad components, is theoretically 30,000 pieces per year, according to practices only 10,000. And so we make them from abroad components.

20 years of the regulation of the Law and Platform led to Poland losing – due to the fact that it had previously had – the ability to build artillery ammunition.

There is no way to know what the effects of the bill will be. We do not know how many rounds of ammunition our capabilities will increase; we do not know how much 1 part will cost; we do not know precisely erstwhile these factories will rise.

At yesterday's committee meeting, however, we were able to learn from the ministry that in 3 years' time, if it goes well, our capabilities would increase to 150 000 artillery ammunition each year. This number must be placed in a certain context. According to the bill's justification, Russia uses 60,000 pieces of ammunition a day in the course of the offensive, and Ukraine uses 10,000 pieces a day in defence. another data indicate that Ukraine needs 100,000 artillery ammunition on average per period for defensive actions, and if it carries out offensive activities – 250 1000 units. This means that If everything works out, in a fewer years' time, our yearly ammunition production will last us for 1.5 months of defence or 2 weeks of offensive action..
At the same time, if we were to act with the Russian momentum, Russia would have utilized up our yearly production of ammunition in 2 days.Ukraine – in 3 days our current production.

If we were truly preparing for this conflict, If we wanted to defend ourselves, as Ukraine defends itself, and not surrender after a month, we would request 1,200 000 rounds of ammunition a year, and we would have 150,000, which is only 12.5% of ammunition needed. That's 5 years after the war started.

To keep Ukraine alive, the United States has so far donated 3 million pieces, and Europe – 500,000 and more. According to various estimates, Russian production alone varies between 3 million and 4.5 million units per year. That means that We request millions of ammunition, not 150,000 a year..

Władysław Kośniak-Kamysz said that this plan is ambitious and considers it ambitious to produce 12% of the ammunition needed 5 years after the outbreak of the war. This is not the only expression of the ambition of Władysław Kosiniak-Kamish. He said that it is essential that we increase our production capacity for production shown by another European country. Which 1 do you think? Ukraine? Russia? France, perhaps? large Britain? Italy? No, this dream, this large ambition of Kośniak-Kamysz is to match the level of production of Slovakia, which is tiny and spends only 2% of its GDP in defence. This is our maximum in a fewer years we dream about – the level of Slovakia.

We are completely disarmed at this point, unprepared for this conflict. We have nothing to defend ourselves with, we have the smallest tanks since the 1940s. The 20th century, the average age of the Polish reservist is 50 years old and we have trace, insufficient in the event of a conflict of ammunition. What needs to be done is to liberalize the right to manufacture weapons and ammunition in Poland, simplify this right, halt interfering with entrepreneurs' production of ammunition and then buy this ammunition on the market.

At this point, we have no tanks, no ammunition, no soldiers. If it comes to conflict, we'll most likely be throwing stones in the Russians, just like Eva Kopacz at dinosaurs.