The Soviet Union was involved in Afghanistan from 1979-1989. No Warsaw Pact troops, Polish or others, were sent there. Poland joined NATO in 1999 supposedly to protect it from post-Soviet Russia. Instead, at NATO’s behest it sent its sons and daughter to kill and die in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Ceremony marks official end of Polish mission to Afghanistan

President Andrzej Duda said at the ceremony that the mission in Afghanistan was one of the most difficult in the history of the Polish army during peacetime.

“A mission in which 44 Polish soldiers and army employees were killed, and almost a thousand were wounded and injured,” Duda added.

Polish soldiers spent almost 20 years in Afghanistan, with over 33,000 troops and defence ministry employees taking part in the mission.