On February 24, 2022, it was the day when there was a radical change in the geostrategic situation in Europe as a result of Russia's aggression to Ukraine. On this day, order based on the principles of international law was undermined as a consequence of which the European security architecture has changed radically. For Poland, a state bordering both Ukraine and Belarusia, aggression is a direct threat to national security. Therefore, it should be strongly emphasized that in Poland there has been a radical change in the perception of the threat from Russia - not as a potential but direct threat to our sovereignty and independence.

Hence, the first system change resulting from a change in the perception of Russia's aggressive policy was the decision of our government to expand our own defense abilities by increasing defense expenditure to a level of 5 %, which significantly accelerated the process of modernizing the armed forces. Not without significance for accelerating the process of modernizing the armed forces was the fact that we donated large amounts of post -Soviet military equipment to Ukraine at a critical moment of its defensive war. By completing the transmitted military equipment, we made a radical change in quality and numerical equipment in the Polish Armed Forces. By purchasing, among others, Abrams tanks and K2 tanks and barrel artillery, mainly 155 mm caliber (crab, k9) as well as M142 Himars and K239 Chunm missile launchers (range up to 300 km) significantly increased our possibilities of repelling Russia before taking aggressive actions against Poland.

The available analyzes of the first days of Russia's aggression to Ukraine show that Ukraine was sentenced to its own defense resources in the first days of the defensive war. The first international aid was delivered only three days after the start of aggression by Russia, but this help in the following days was radically increased. At this point, it should be emphasized that Ukraine was in completely different political and military conditions than Poland is today. NATO and the EU are the strength and guarantee of our security, as well as strategic cooperation with the USA. Nevertheless, the question should be asked whether we should also take into account such a variant of action that Poland must be prepared for leading in the first phase of Russia's possible aggression at our country of the so -called national defense operation . Taking into account such a variant of conducting defense operations forces other preparation and equipment of our armed forces, with particular considering primarily the appropriate level of material inventory (ammunition, fuel, spare parts, etc.), hardware (equipment for reserve units) and personal reserves (active reserve, trained reserve and not trained reserve).

Russia's full -scale aggression in Ukraine has realized many countries in our region, the need to build their own defensive resources, including the most important reconstruction of personal reserves to repel the possible full -line aggression of Russia. Basic military service was restored, among others in Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia. In our country 2009, basic military service was suspended, but in 2022 a new form of military service was introduced - voluntary basic military service. It is directed to volunteers wanting to undergo military training, and then get involved with the army through service in operational units. However, even if we look at this form of military service in a very optimistic way, building personal reserves at the level of one million trained soldiers is impossible to achieve today. Therefore, having requests from the war in Ukraine, you should consider in what system the way to prepare personal reserves with the purpose of a million trained soldiers professional soldiers and reserve) with resources of 38 million citizens. In my opinion, this is not a real goal if we present an example of Finland, which is in a similar geostrategic situation as Poland and with resources of about 5 million citizens Finland assumes in a conflict situation to establish a million army. In Finland, this is possible because there is a well -organized basic military service that has a high level of support and understanding of society for the need for national service.

In the current geostrategic situation and visible symptoms of a real threat from Russia, consider reinforcement of consumption in Poland. In connection with social changes that have already occurred in our country, a different form should be given to basic military service. That is why I postulate to look at the problem of personal reserves more than just because of the needs of the army. Experiences from the war in Ukraine indicate that reserves for other state services such as police, fire brigade, civil defense and health service are equally important. It should be emphasized that the battles are fought by the army, but the war is fought. Therefore, a new form of service to a state that gives the possibility of choosing the final form of the national service by the conscript should be postulated. It should also be taken into account that it is not possible to train the entire population of one collection year, therefore the adoption of the so -called Scandinavian model, i.e. training around 20 - 25% of the population seems real to perform. In this variant, it is possible to first include volunteers in the consumption, and then supplement the target number of conscripts in a given year with people who have the expected skills and education needed at a given time in the army or other state services.

In order for this project to have a chance of success, you should focus on building an effective recruitment registration (records) system and an effective reserve training system based on specialized reserver training centers not only on the basis of reserve training centers, but also military units on the so -called Western Wall (due to the low degree of completion) which may act as a low degree of completion). In addition, in the system of building personal reserves we must take into account the creation of the entire reserve body, assuming that the battalion (squadron) will be a basic combat module. It seems reasonable to create a command, or at least the reserve army inspectorate in the General Command of the SZ in order to coordinate reserves in all types of armed forces.

In the proposed solution, reserves must be directed to mobilization assignments to existing combat units on the eastern wall as a reserve of the highest readiness (active reserve). Another group of reservists must be directed to units with a lower level of completion, which in peace perform the aforementioned functions of reserve training centers, so that they can achieve combat readiness at the time as soon as possible. These two groups of combat units completed with an active reserve guarantee a quick response to a possible threat and constitute an important aspect of repelling a possible aggressor.

The most important postulate is that the main number of trained reserves should be directed to service in reserve units created as part of the reserve corps and not only land forces. Reserve units should consist of combat modules (battalions, squadrons) which after activation and training could be quickly directed to surgery to increase the defense potential.

Russia's aggression to Ukraine has radically changed the Polish security environment. On the one hand, this should be strongly emphasized, it increased the threats - both military and hybrid - but on the other, it contributed to strengthening Poland's position in NATO and our region, accelerated the process of modernization of the army and made the importance of national security aware of the public. Poland has a chance to get out of this crisis stronger, if it maintains the adopted level of investment in defense and builds public awareness of the need for national service.