Estimated reading time: 0 minutes
Patriot air defence systems will arrive in Poland in the coming days, Polish Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak has said.
On Monday, the dpa press agency reported, quoting a German government source, that the Bundeswehr, the German army, had already started to relocate Patriot air defence systems to Poland.
The German government offered the US-made Patriots to Warsaw after a stray missile, believed to be Ukrainian, crashed to earth in eastern Poland in November 2022, killing two.
“Work on the siting of the air defence missiles continues,” Blaszczak told a Polish public radio programme on Monday, adding that they would be incorporated into the Polish command system and the Polish Armed Forces will decide on their use.
He also said that the Patriots would be deployed in the Lubelskie province, in eastern Poland.
The defence minister added that the fact that Ukraine had also been promised Patriots should be seen as Poland’s victory.
“It is Ukraine which is being attacked by Russia, it is Ukraine where people are being killed… and it is Ukraine which needs such support,” the minister said, adding that, owing to Poland’s initiative, Germany had declared the hand-over of Patriots to Ukraine.