Warsaw announced at the beginning of the month a major investment plan of nearly 2.4 billion euros. Recently, the Polish authorities detailed how this budget would be used.
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With our correspondent in Warsaw, Martin Chabal
Minefields, bunkers, anti-tank obstacles or even satellite surveillance… The Poland wants to make its 700 km border with the Russia and the Belarus as waterproof as possible. The objective? Fortify to dissuade Moscow from attacking Eastern European countries.
This plan is called “Eastern Shield” and will also be coordinated by the Baltic countries. They too want to avoid any surprise attacks and hope that everything will be ready by 2028. To carry out this plan, expensive investments are necessary. Warsaw also hopes that they could, in part, be financed by the European Union.
But this plan could also land problems for Poland because Warsaw signed the Ottawa Convention to ban the use of antipersonnel mines. Especially since many refugees from Africa and the Middle East are already trying to cross the border between Belarus and Poland, which was reinforced by a wall a few years ago.
Missile purchases
Faced with the Russian threat, Warsaw also increased its defense budget to around 4% of GDP, the highest figure among NATO countries. Poland has also launched, with billions of dollars, a series of purchases of military equipment, mainly from the United States and South Korea.
For example, it announced on Monday the purchase of cruise missiles worth 677 million euros from the United States in order to increase its defense capabilities. “ The war in Ukraine demonstrated the importance of being able to fire missiles at targets even very far from the front line, and the range of the missiles that will be purchased is approximately 1,000 km », Specified the Polish Ministry of Defense in a press release.