Poland To Buy Patriot Missiles In $5 Billion Deal

The US and Poland governments will negotiate an agreement on purchase of Patriot medium-range air/missile defense systems for Poland, President Bronislaw Komorowski announced Tuesday.

The president along with the prime minister and defense minister decided to order the Patriot systems from the US worth up to $5 billion.

Commenting the decisions, President Komorowski stressed that military modernization was important in face of the security regress caused by the Russia-Ukraine conflict. 

"Security issues and defense, with a special view to the modernization of the Polish armed forces, were one of the priorities of my presidency", Komorowski said. He added that the government's Tuesday decisions enhanced Poland's military modernization program and stressed that an anti-missile shield was the top military priority for Poland.

"Today has seen some very important decisions which will deepen and strengthen the process of modernizing the armed forces in a situation where we must seek security for Poland in a generally unsafe world, in which the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which is a military conflict, has caused a regress in security", the president said.

Komorowski informed that the Polish defense minister will travel to the US in May to negotiate the Patriot deal.

Komorowski announced further military contracts for the Polish army in the near future. In this context he named plans to purchase short-range anti-aircraft systems, UAVs and naval equipment.

"It's pointless to have a professional army without state-of-the-art equipment", Komorowski said.

The US Embassy in Warsaw wrote in a statement that Poland's decision to purchase Patriot air defense systems was an important step in security cooperation between both countries.