Poland’s defense budget will exceed 4% of the country’s GDP

More than 4% of its GDP will be allocated by Poland in its defense in the next fiscal year, as President Andrey Duda announced. “Next year it is predicted that we will spend 137 billion zlotys (approx. 35 billion euros) for defense. This represents more than 4% of our GDP,” Duda said, speaking at a major military equipment exhibition in Kielce. “There is no price that is not worth paying so that Poland is free, nationally sovereign and independent, so that Poles can live safely,” added the president, according to the PAP agency and as broadcast by APE-MPE.

Poland, which is a member of NATO and the EU, decided to increase its defense budget after the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It recently sounded the alarm about the danger posed to it by another neighboring country, Belarus, which it denounces for “provocations” mainly by its mercenaries Wagner organization who are now based there.

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Warsaw has signed many equipment contracts, primarily with the US and South Korea. At the end of August, Washington approved a colossal contract for the sale of 96 Apache helicopters, worth a total of $12 billion. Warsaw will also buy from the US 32 F-35 fighter jets, 366 Abrams tanks and Patriot anti-missile systems. From South Korea, it has agreed to buy about a thousand K2 tanks, 50 FA-50 fighter jets, 288 K239 multiple launch rocket systems, while from the British subsidiary of the European company MBDA, it will get anti-aircraft missiles worth about 2.5 billion euros. Today, it was also announced that it will buy from Norway four Norwegian anti-ship systems and NSM missiles, with a range of 185 km and a value of 1.4 billion euros, it was announced by the manufacturer Kongsber Defense & Aerospace. These missiles can be launched either from land or sea.