WARSAW--Poland has opted for Raytheon Co.'s Patriot system for
its planned missile defense shield said President Bronislaw
Komorowski on Tuesday as the country looks to modernize its armed
forces in the face of a more assertive Russian foreign policy.
Concerned that the smoldering separatist conflict in eastern
Ukraine will erupt into a full-scale military conflict, Poland has
pledged to increase its military spending.
Warsaw plans to return to its earlier policy of spending 2% of
gross domestic product on its armed forces in 2016, after it scaled
back spending in recent years to shore up its public finances.
Along with the Raytheon Patriot Air and Missile Defense System
estimated to cost as much as 26 billion zlotys ($7 billion) the
government has chosen Airbus Helicopters H225M Caracal for testing
in a continuing tender for 50 multipurpose helicopters. Warsaw had
originally planned to buy 70 helicopters
"There will be more contracts because we have a professional
army," Mr. Komorowski said. "A professional army without
state-of-the-art equipment makes no sense."
Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak will visit Washington, D.C. in
May to negotiate an inter-government agreement under which Poland
will buy the missile system, Mr. Komorowski said. Raytheon faced
French consortium Eurosam in the last phase of the tender.
Warsaw wants to receive two patriot batteries within three years
after the deal is signed and five more by 2025, the Defense
Ministry said on its website Tuesday.
The missile shield is expected to be a part of NATO's
long-running project to deter missile attacks in Europe. The
project is hotly contested by Moscow which argues its aim is to
threaten Russia rather than to protect itself from a potential
threat from Iran, as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has
said in the past.
Last week General Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff
of the Russian Armed Forces, said missile defense systems planned
for installation in Poland and Romania represented a threat and
Moscow had to prepare to respond.
Poland's Defense Ministry reiterated the missile shield is
purely a defensive weapon system.
Write to Patryk Wasilewski at patryk.wasilewski@wsj.com
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