Polish Parliament Building Has No Bomb Shelter — But It Should, Says Speaker Hołownia

In Poland, we are building civil defense from scratch.

The Finnish and Ukrainian experience teaches that if you build shelters, they should serve a dual purpose. In peacetime, they could be used as clubs, gyms, preschools, or anything else.

Do you carry a weapon? Have you received military training?

No, I don’t have a weapon.

But my wife is a soldier — a fighter jet pilot. So I have my own commander-in-chief at home and a lot of connections in the armed forces. She’s an excellent shooter and sometimes takes me to the shooting range.

The Polish government is developing a broad national military training program for civilians. Once it launches later this year, I will definitely take part.

Why are Polish people no longer willing to help Ukrainian refugees?

I don’t believe that we’ve stopped wanting to help Ukrainian refugees.

Poland supports Ukraine and will continue to do so — militarily, politically, diplomatically, and financially.

At the start of the war, we accepted nearly three million Ukrainian refugees. We shared everything with them—food, money, space, and time. Ukrainians living in Poland have equal access to public services: healthcare, social support, child benefits.

Yes, in some circles people question whether that’s fair. But in my view, anti-Ukrainian sentiment in Poland is marginal and not credible.

Still, time does play a role. The war has now lasted more than three years. Millions of Ukrainians still live and work in Poland.

The presidential campaign showed me that people are exhausted from crisis after crisis: COVID, the war in Ukraine, the climate crisis, hybrid warfare, financial instability, migration pressure.

People are looking for relief, and that’s exactly what political forces sowing fear and xenophobia are exploiting.

But we should not be fighting the Ukrainians living in Poland by saying they don’t belong. We should be trying to stabilize the situation. Living in a crisis for three years is hard—it’s time to find ways to normalize things.

If someone is bleeding out, you help them immediately. Now, it’s time to figure out how to live together.

Many Ukrainians who fled to Poland will stay. My message during the presidential campaign — and still today — is this: we are investing in the future when Ukrainian children attend our schools, make Polish friends, watch Polish films, and listen to Polish music.

Every Ukrainian working in Poland pays taxes and ultimately contributes to our economy.

How far is Poland willing to go in supporting Ukraine militarily?

We will not send our troops to Ukraine. That is certain.

Why not?

There has to be a clear reason to send troops to Ukraine. Right now, there is no ceasefire or peace agreement in place that would require foreign soldiers to monitor it.

The mission of any troops sent to Ukraine must be clearly defined. Who takes responsibility if one of those soldiers opens fire? Who ensures their protection?

From the start of the conflict, we've said we would only consider sending troops if covered by NATO’s collective security umbrella — and currently, we don’t see that happening.

However, we are ready to support any coalition of will, such as one led by France or the United Kingdom, by providing logistics and intelligence support.

In my view, we should listen more closely to what the Ukrainians are actually asking for. They're not asking for troops — they're asking for access to frozen Russian assets. That is the real issue. Billions of euros are tied up because of indecision in Berlin, Paris, and Brussels.

Instead of going to Washington, we should be going to Berlin, Paris, and Brussels to persuade our Eurocrats that it is just to make the thief pay for what he stole.

Putin should pay—not us. Justice means seizing the money of this bandit and mass murderer and holding him accountable.

Every time I speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he says: Ukraine’s defense industry can produce what we need — but we need money to produce it. That money lies in the frozen assets of the Russian state.

That is the real issue — not a theoretical debate over whether to send 200 or 1,000 troops to Ukraine.

Additionally, Poland has hundreds of kilometers of border with Russia and Belarus, and by defending that border, we are protecting all of Europe. France and the UK don’t share such borders. Standing with our troops face-to-face with the enemy on the EU’s external border is Poland’s responsibility.

If - for example - Estonia were in trouble, would Poland be willing to send its soldiers there?

Of course — because we have the NATO treaty and Article 5. We expect Estonia to help us too, if we are attacked.

Poland is a reliable and respectable partner. We can be trusted. We are ready to defend you. That is our duty. Of course, I hope no one attacks Estonia or us. Personally, I believe Putin will not try to attack with conventional forces, but instead escalate hybrid warfare to a very high level in the next three to five years — and that’s exactly what he is preparing against us.

Putin won't attack us from the outside — he’ll attack from within, using digital tools, disrupting interstate relations, and obstructing the construction of cross-border infrastructure.

In Poland, our society is also divided, and emotions can run extremely high — Russians are actively trying to fracture our societies.

Right now, we need to build alliances within our societies and with our neighbors — not just under the NATO or EU umbrella. The peacetime luxury of living in isolation and not getting along with neighbors is something we no longer have.

When the time comes to decide whether to invoke Article 5, decision-makers will need the backing of their societies. Our people must be ready to say: “We will send our boys to help Poland or Estonia.” That readiness is critically important.

What kinds of hybrid attacks did you observe during the Polish presidential campaign in May?

As far as I know, there were many attempts to destabilize the situation, starting with some rather strange candidates who openly spread Russian propaganda. These candidates managed to collect the required 100,000 signatures to get on the ballot, but in the first round of voting, they failed to receive more than 8,000 votes.

There were also attempts to disrupt the electoral process itself. Fake accounts, trolls, and pseudonymous agents were active on social media, especially intensifying their efforts in the final week before the vote.

We heard similar reports during the Romanian presidential elections.

If the Russians have already tried twice to interfere in U.S. presidential elections, they are certainly trying to meddle in ours as well — and we must be prepared for that.

The previous government before Tusk’s dismantled some of the safeguards within Poland’s political system. In a time of crisis, it becomes painfully clear how essential it is to have a functioning state — one whose institutions people can trust.

Politics has become very loud, very emotional, and very social media-driven—like a series of short films.

Paradoxically, though, the only real solution to calming our societies is to meet in the middle. As politicians, we often leap toward the ceiling but forget the floor. And right now, the floor is much more important than the ceiling.

The next Polish president is closely linked to the Law and Justice party, but you speak of restoring constitutional order and bridging divisions. How do you plan to do that? As Speaker of the Sejm, you play a key role.

We don’t yet know how things will unfold because we only know Karol Nawrocki as a presidential candidate. I didn’t vote for him, and we disagree on many issues — but I look forward to working with him, because we both bear responsibility for our country. Half of Poland voted for him, and as president, his job is to represent the entire nation.

As Speaker of the Sejm, I can be a bridge between the government and the president. In that sense, I’m in a unique position, with the freedom to meet and discuss matters with the president.

In foreign policy, Nawrocki will likely focus more on relations with the U.S. — he already sought support from Donald Trump during his campaign. I believe I can persuade him that Poland’s security must rest on three pillars: NATO, the EU, and regional alliances such as the one between Poland, the Baltics, and Finland, which is already functioning well at the parliamentary speaker level.

A table needs three legs to be stable. Two are not enough.

In Poland’s political system, the president doesn’t govern — that role belongs to Tusk’s government. But the president has a powerful mandate, as he is directly elected by 10 or even 20 million citizens. His voice carries weight, and he holds significant symbolic importance.

The president’s real power lies in his ability to veto legislation. He represents Poland at NATO summits, while the prime minister handles EU affairs.

Of course, political conflict is expected — we’ll see strong emotions. Even now, I feel pressure to use some constitutional tricks against Nawrocki before his inauguration on August 6. But I have no intention of doing that. Even if we are political opponents, I wish him well and am ready to work together for the good of our country.

So there won’t be a government crisis in Poland under Tusk?

If you’re asking whether there will be snap elections in the next two and a half years, I am one hundred percent convinced that there won’t be.

I can say just as confidently that the polarization in Poland’s political system reached its peak with the most recent presidential election.

Now we’ll begin to see a transformation of that system—marked by the rise of several smaller parties and, in some cases, leadership changes within existing ones.

I hope these developments will help stabilize the situation rather than destabilize it.