Ukrainian Defense Minister Reznikov claimed on Wednesday in an interview with Polish TV during his visit to Warsaw that “If Ukraine does not stop the Russians with your help, the Russians will come to you. Your boys and girls do not die at the front. Today we are paying with our blood for being able to speak in a free Warsaw.” This amounts to nothing but fake news fearmongering since there’s no realistic scenario where Russia attacks – let alone invades and subsequently occupies – Poland without sparking World War III. All that Reznikov is doing is repeating the mantra that his country’s new Polish overlords first introduced for the purpose of convincing their compatriots to sacrifice for Kiev’s sake.

To explain, these two countries merged into a de facto confederation late last month as evidenced by the statements to this effect given by their respective presidents during the Polish one’s latest trip to the Ukrainian capital. Once the neo-imperial ego trip wore off, however, the Polish leadership soon realized that it was manipulated by everyone in Europe into jumping head-first into this geopolitical project that arguably serves German interests much more than their own country’s. It wasn’t long after that it then slashed its refugee benefits and stopped shipping free fuel to Kiev upon concluding that it simply can’t afford to indefinitely fund its de facto federal partner.

More Poles are starting to publicly wonder whether all of this is really worth it since they’re the ones who might be left having to pay for everything if the US-led West remains reluctant to subsidize Ukraine’s post-conflict reconstruction. This could naturally lead to higher taxes amidst one of the worst economic crises in recent memory that might in turn further reduce their country’s growth prospects and thus make it more difficult for their own people to maintain the living standards that they’ve become accustomed to over the years. In a desperate attempt to manage perceptions about the rising costs of this geopolitical project, Polish leaders have claimed that it’s all to “defend their democracy”.

There’s no truth to that whatsoever at all since Russia wouldn’t ever attack NATO-member Poland, let alone invade and subsequently occupy it. Anyone like Reznikov and his Polish overlords who claims otherwise is lying for the purpose of manipulating their target audience, which in this case is the Polish people who are expected to pay more in the coming future to subsidize this neighboring former Soviet Republic’s refugees and post-conflict reconstruction. Regrettably, many Poles are easily duped into agreeing to anything as long as it’s on an anti-Russian pretext, hence the fake news fearmongering that Russia will invade their country after its ongoing special military operation succeeds in Ukraine.

There’s a more urgent reason for why this false narrative is being more prominently propagated to the people nowadays and that’s to convince them that it’s worth paying to replenish their country’s depleted military stockpiles that it literally gave away to Ukraine. President Duda desperately pleaded over the weekend for his country’s Western allies to replace these lost wares as soon as possible, which he admitted might take years to happen, adding that Warsaw would even be happy to receive used items instead of brand-new ones. It’s unlikely that anyone is going to give Poland anything for free so its people will probably have to pony up to pitch in for purchasing these replacements.

It’s understandable that the average Pole might be put off by the thought of bringing home less money after paying more in taxes to help fund the replenishment of their national arsenal that was unprecedentedly depleted after their leadership literally gave it away to Kiev. Without being brainwashed into thinking that this was for a so-called “greater cause”, people might start protesting or at the very least vote against the ruling party during fall 2023’s next elections. For that reason, its leadership is more actively pushing the false narrative than ever before that Kiev is fighting to “defend Polish democracy” and even having that country’s Defense Minister repeat it too.

Simply put, that claim is one of the biggest lies to ever be introduced into the Polish public discourse. It’s politically self-serving for those Polish officials who propagate it since this false narrative is meant to deflect from the reckless spending associated with their neo-imperial project for de facto confederating with Ukraine. It’s also meant to manipulate people into supporting the redistribution of their hard-earned national wealth into replenishing their armed forces’ arsenal after it was literally just given away to Kiev for no legitimate reason at all other than to build their leadership’s vanity project. Ukraine isn’t “defending Poland’s democracy”, it’s just turning into a money pit for LARPing Polish politicians.