ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Ryszard Kukliński

Okay, so Ryszard Kukliński was a man who worked for the government in Poland a long time ago. But not just any job - He was a super important guy that knew lots of secrets about the government and the military.

Now, one day Ryszard was feeling very sad because he didn't like the things he saw the government doing. He thought they were making some bad choices and hurting people. So, he decided he needed to do something about it.

He knew that if he tried to just tell everyone what he knew, he'd probably get into trouble or maybe get hurt. So, he came up with a plan to secretly give important information about the government and the military to some other people. These were people who wanted to try and help make things better too, but they needed some inside information to do it.

Ryszard was very sneaky and good at his job, so he managed to keep giving out information for a long time without anyone knowing. But then, he got caught! People found out that he had been giving out secrets, which was against the rules.

Even though he was caught and put in danger because of it, lots of people respected him for standing up for what he thought was right. Some people even say that because of what he did, some things in the government changed for the better.