Poland Sending Missiles, Drones & Thousands of Artillery Rounds to Ukraine
Poland Is Sending Missiles, Drones And Thousands Of Artillery Rounds To Ukraine
PublishedFebruary 3, 2022
Grom anti-air MANPADS missile system from Poland.
On Monday, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced Warsaw would deliver military assistance to Ukraine as it faces Russian forces massing on its border for what looks like preparation for a possible invasion.
Poland’s assistance would come in the form of Grom man-portable air defense missiles, drones of unspecified type, “tens of thousands of” artillery rounds, and light mortar systems. Furthermore, Warsaw was furnishing 132 tons of humanitarian assistance (medical supplies, 2 million masks, bedding), and was ready to provide economic aid to Kyiv, particularly pertaining to gas supplies.
The military aid is not significant enough in scale to deter Putin. That is likely true even of the over 2,000 advanced NLAW and hundreds of Javelin anti-tank missiles furnished by United Kingdom, United States and Estonia to Ukraine. However, it does signal to Moscow that in event of a protracted conflict in Ukraine, Warsaw might maintain a lifeline of arms and logistical support to Kyiv, raising the potential cost to Russia.
Indeed, on Tuesday it emerged London, Warsaw and Kyiv are reportedly in talks to form a trilateral security cooperation pact in talks attended by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Whatever the pact may entail, it suggests that NATO members particularly concerned about Russian aggression targeting Ukraine are looking for ways to assist Kyiv outside the existing NATO framework.
Poland is especially sensitive to Moscow’s military activities in Eastern Europe, as it has been dominated by Russia for most of the last two-and-a-half centuries. But Krzysztof Kuska, an expert on the Polish defense industry, explained to me Warsaw could not realistically intervene in Ukraine without dangerously exposing defense of its own borders to a Russian counterattack via Belarus or the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
“On the other hand this situation might also be a opportunity,” Kuska allowed, noting the lack of German or French leadership in confronting Russia on Ukraine. “Poland could act with caution and try to form a broader alliance of countries from the EU/NATO block. Such a group of countries could be a significant deterrent to a potential Russian offensive but there would have to be some real actions and not just words. Significant troops would have to be sent to Poland and stand there in readiness to help Ukraine.”
