The assault at the Skalčany crossing — the price of a riverbank
The assault at the Skalčany crossing — a maneuver that must not be paid for with blind arrogance
The situation in our operational sector is accelerating fast. The Polish 9th Infantry Division is falling back from the Brzezinice-Stare lignite belt toward the Czech border through the farmland around Zbożne-Górne. At headquarters in Lipník Ždárný some are already drawing arrows of swift victory toward the Odra-Malá crossing at Skalčany and further to Ostrava, but I have seen too many battles to give in to that intoxication. Yes, the morale of the Poles has cracked after a night of continuous fire on the headframe buildings and the No. 3 shaft cage; they are falling back under pressure and losing cohesion. But I caution against writing them off prematurely. A wounded infantry unit, driven onto open farmland and knowing the Czech 11th Infantry Brigade is right behind it, bites back very hard. They still have 155 mm self-propelled howitzers, anti-tank missile teams, and an intimate knowledge of every gully around Wólka Jaśminowa. Treating them as harmless would be a fatal mistake.
Moreover, the situation on the line itself is growing more complex. The approaches to the reception line at Skalčany and the pontoon crossing over the Odra-Malá are being reinforced by the fresh Czech 11th Infantry Brigade — well-equipped forces tasked with receiving the retreating Poles and forming a solid screen. If the remnants of the Polish 9th manage to regroup behind that line, we will not be facing a fractured enemy but a coordinated defense anchored on prepared positions at the embankment and on the dominant hill Ždárna-1.
Our command is preparing a mass assault on the Skalčany crossing and onward to Ostrava. From an operational standpoint the direction makes sense — the Odra-Malá crossing connects the two rail branches that the Czechs are using to feed reinforcements, and capturing it breaks the logistical spine of the entire southern wing. However, the risks are immense, and no one in the rear should have any illusions:
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The trap of the river floodplain and the open pit: The approaches to Skalčany run across an exposed floodplain, cut through by drainage ditches and the sunken mine haulage road. Here our armor loses its maneuver, and every ditch becomes a ready-made ambush site.
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Overextended logistics lines: As we push deeper into the plain, our fuel tankers and ammunition trucks are forced to move along a single dust-covered ribbon behind the assault columns. As I wrote before — without fuel and shells, the most elegantly planned attack turns into a meat grinder.
And there is one more reality eating at my conscience — something that turns my stomach as a veteran who remembers what true comradeship meant. Look closely at who is going in the first wave through the minefields at the No. 3 shaft cage, who is storming the headframe buildings beneath Brzezinice-Stare, and who is filling the manifests at the field hospital in Lipník Ždárný. It is not the sons of the elite comfortably settled in the Capital. The comfortable classes in the center drink their morning coffee in heated cafes, safely shielded by exemptions, connections, and bureaucratic paperwork, completely detached from the stench of cordite and coal dust.
The brunt of this bloody push is borne almost entirely by the disadvantaged — the lads from mountain villages in Dagestan, from hunting settlements at the headwaters of the Lena, from forgotten factory towns and Yakut ulus, who had no choice in life and nowhere else to turn. They are the ones paying the horrifying toll on this pit. When these boys fall on the spoil heaps, an entire generation of working hands vanishes from communities that were already barely surviving.
The assault on the Skalčany crossing must not become a reckless meat grinder that treats the poorest among us as cheap, expendable fuel. A just cause demands prudence, precise artillery support, and genuine equality of sacrifice. If our state wants to claim moral standing, it cannot protect the sons of the Capital while bleeding the mountain and arctic periphery dry. We need commanders who value every single life on the line — especially those from the margins who have given everything for this flag.
