WARSAW, Poland — The Polish Ministry of Defence is planning to spend more than 61 billion zloty (US $14.5 billion) to acquire new weapons and military equipment from 2017 to 2022, said Katarzyna Jakubowska, the acting spokesperson for the ministry.
"Of these, in the course of the next three years, until the end of 2019, more than 24 billion zloty will be spent," Jakubowska said in a statement.
The priority procurements for the Polish Armed Forces are to include new air defense systems, 14 multi-purpose helicopters, 1,200 UAVs, three coastal defense vessels and two mine destroyers, as well as an undisclosed amount of submarines that are to be jointly acquired by Poland and another NATO ally, according to the spokeswoman.
The fleet of UAVs are to include at least 1,000 drones enabled with combat capacities as well as 200 UAVs enabled with reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities, according to the ministerial statement.
The planned procurements will be carried out within the five areas of military modernization that are considered as the most strategic and pressing ones by the ministry. These include air defense, naval, cybersecurity, tank and armored vehicle, and territorial defense capacities. The five areas will cover about 60 percent of Poland’s military modernization budget for the years 2017 to 2022.
To arm the territorial defense forces, which are to comprise about 50,000 volunteers, the Defence Ministry plans to spend about 3.2 billion zloty on new weapons and military gear by 2022, Jakubowska said.
Jaroslaw Adamowski is the Poland correspondent for Defense News.
