Poland’s defence ministry has signed a deal for the construction of an air defence system that will be produced domestically based on foreign designs.
The agreement, signed today at the International Defence Industry Exhibition in Kielce, is with the state-owned Polish Armaments Group (PGZ). It will produce almost 400 launchers for short-range missiles, which will be able to combat targets such as unmanned aerial vehicles.
“Finally, we are implementing this important task at the highest global level and complementing elements of our country’s anti-missile and anti-aircraft defence shield,” said President Andrzej Duda on Tuesday, quoted by the Polish Press Agency. He hailed it as part of ongoing efforts to modernise Poland’s armed forces.
Poland must develop its own defence industry and reduce reliance on imports if it is to achieve strategic independence and genuine sovereignty, argues @chimiczuk of @KlubJagiellonsk.
But to do so it needs to improve the management of state institutions https://t.co/4X6fs7hOHI
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) February 17, 2021
The program, known as Narew, is estimated to be worth up to 33 billion zloty (€7.3 billion), reports Defense News. This week’s deal with PGZ is a framework agreement that will be supplemented by supply contracts for specific parts of the system over the coming years.
Analytical and conceptual work on the system ended in April, but now foreign suppliers will compete for the design. The current contenders include a team of Raytheon and Norway’s Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace; European giant MBDA; Israel Aerospace Industries; and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, another Israeli firm, reports Defense News.
Duda described the deal as “the largest and most complex contract in the history of the Polish armed forces”.
#PAD o systemie „Narew”: To największy i najbardziej skomplikowany kontrakt w historii polskich sił zbrojnych – kilkadziesiąt miliardów złotych na w sumie prawie 400 wyrzutni, z których mogą być wystrzeliwane rakiety krótkiego zasięgu obrony powietrznej naszego kraju. pic.twitter.com/5QMuBUHQjU
— Kancelaria Prezydenta (@prezydentpl) September 7, 2021
Poland’s army already has very short-range Grom and Piorun rocket systems – part of the Poprad platform – and in 2018 signed a deal for medium-range Patriot missiles made by Raytheon for its Wisła air defence system.
The Narew programme – also named after a Polish river, like Wisła and Poprad – will complement the other two programmes with an intermediate (up to 40km) range of missiles.
Poland has recently made a number of military acquisitions, including 250 M1A2 Abrams SEPv3 tanks from the US as well as 24 Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones, in a deal awarded in May without a tender.
Main image credit: Nikodem Nijaki/Wikimedia Commons (under CC BY-SA 3.0)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
