Warsaw, 13 June 2022 (dpa/MIA) - The people of Poland are ready to offer resistance in the event of a Russian attack, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Monday at the opening of a sport-shooting gallery in Myszkow in southern Poland. Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, shooting galleries in Poland have experienced a surge in interest. "Should Russia ever consider attacking Poland, Russia has to know, and the Kremlin has to know, that there are 40 million Poles in Poland ready to take weapons in hand to defend their mother country," Morawiecki said. He emphasized that the war in Ukraine had shown everyone that freedom is not to be taken for granted. Poland had also been "under the Russian boot" for centuries, he said. "We do not want to return to this lack of freedom. We reject their colonialism and imperialism," he said. He announced that Poland will therefore enlarge its army and invest in new weapons systems. According to the central statistics authority GUS, Poland currently has just over 38 million inhabitants. However, many more are living outside the country; even just in Germany, 871,000 people with Polish citizenship were recorded in 2021.