Ukraine seeks €120m loan from Poland to buy Polish-made weapons

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Ukraine has asked Poland about the possibility of securing a €120 million loan to fund the purchase of Polish-made weapons, Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha has confirmed.

“Using this credit, we are ready to purchase products from Poland’s defence industrial sector,” Sybiha said in an interview with Ukrainian state-run news agency Ukrinform following a meeting with Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, last week.

According to Sybiha, Ukraine is interested in acquiring Piorun man-portable air-defence systems, among other military equipment. He also praised Poland’s Krab self-propelled howitzers.

Pioruns and Krabs have already been battle‑tested in Ukraine and widely praised for their effectiveness, with the former also having been purchased by Belgium, Estonia and Norway, among other countries. In 2022, Ukraine bought around 60 Krabs in what was then Poland’s largest arms export deal.

Sybiha met Sikorski on 1 August at the Polish foreign minister’s private residence in Chobielin, northern Poland. Poland’s foreign ministry said the pair discussed bilateral cooperation and further assistance to Kyiv “in a private atmosphere”.

“Poland has strong traditions in defence manufacturing, and we are open to acquiring this equipment,” Sybiha said. Asked whether Ukraine had requested a specific sum to facilitate the purchase of Polish weapons, he confirmed that “we talked about a loan worth €120 million”.

The Ukrainian foreign minister said that in the future, the countries could discuss, among other things, “co-production” in Ukraine and in Poland, describing it as a shared and mutually beneficial interest, as well as “a contribution to our common future”.

Following the talks, Sikorski said military cooperation between Poland and Ukraine remains a priority in the face of Russian aggression. He emphasised the importance of upcoming EU military aid packages for Kyiv and welcomed US President Donald Trump’s decision to resume support for Ukraine.

He has not yet publicly commented on Sybiha’s remarks regarding the potential loan. Poland has ramped up defence spending in recent years to the highest level in NATO. It has NATO’s third largest army, and the alliance’s largest in Europe.

In 2022, Pioruns were among the large quantities of military equipment Poland provided to Ukraine to help its eastern neighbour defend itself from Russia’s full-scale invasion. The systems were successfully used to take down a variety of Russian aircraft.

In that same year, Polish arms manufacturer Mesko announced that the US government had ordered “several hundred” Piorun systems while Norway and Estonia put in similar orders. Earlier this year, Belgium also placed an order for “hundreds of Pioruns”.

In the same interview, Sybiha also said that Kyiv is “looking forward to” a possible visit from Poland’s newly elected president, Karol Nawrocki, who is due to take office on Wednesday. “We have a strong interest in a dialogue between the leaders of [our] countries to be established as soon as possible,” he added.

Opposition-aligned Nawrocki, the head of the state Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), took a tough stance on Ukraine during his presidential campaign.

In January, he said that he “currently does not envision Ukraine in either the EU or NATO”, drawing criticism from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He also pledged to prioritise the rights of Polish citizens over those of immigrants, of which the majority in Poland are Ukrainians.

However, he has also pledged to continue Poland’s military support for Ukraine in its defence against Russian aggression.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Ministerstwo Obrony Narodowej (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.