Poland must prepare its soldiers for all-out conflict, its armed forces chief of staff said on Wednesday, as the country ramps up troop numbers on its borders with Russia and Belarus.
Poland’s relations with Russia and its ally Belarus have deteriorated significantly since Moscow launched a full-scale attack on neighboring Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
“Today, we have to prepare our forces for large-scale conflict, not an asymmetric type conflict,” Polish Army Chief of Staff General Wieslaw Kukula said at a press conference.
“This forces us to find a good balance between the border mission and maintaining the intensity of our army’s exercises,” he said.
Speaking at the same press conference, Polish Deputy Defense Minister Pawel Bejda said that from August, the number of troops guarding Poland’s eastern border will increase from 6,000 to 8,000 and they will be able to be supported within 48 hours of a contingent of 9 thousand other troops.
In May, Poland released details of the “Eastern Shield”, a $2.5 billion program to strengthen defenses along its border with Belarus and Russia, which Warsaw plans to spend until 2028.
The border with Belarus has been a hot spot since migrants began flocking there in 2021 after Belarus opened travel routes for people from the Middle East, offering them a new unofficial route to Europe. The European Union has considered the action of Belarus an attempt to create an artificial crisis.
Warsaw has increased defense spending to more than 4 percent of its gross domestic product this year in response to Russian aggression in Ukraine.
General Kukula also said that the current high interest of candidates to join the military posed a dilemma if more recruits were to be accepted than budgeted for, especially as he said interest to serve in the military is expected to begin to decline significantly from 2027.
At the end of last year, Poland had about 190,000 soldiers, including ground, air, naval, special and territorial defense forces. Poland plans to increase the number of its troops to 300,000 within a few years. /VOA
