Poland is building the Eastern Shield for 2.5 billion euros

 

By 2028, Poland plans to spend 2.5 billion euros to build the "Eastern Shield", which is intended to protect against a possible attack from Russia or Belarus.

"We want to be strong enough to avoid war. The Russian attack on Ukraine forced us to take appropriate measures in order to be ready for a possible threat," General Stanislaw Czosnek, who heads the Eastern Shield construction project, told a group of Brussels correspondents, reports Hina.

The Polish government, which took over the rotating presidency on January 1, hosted a small group of Brussels correspondents this week to show how seriously it takes security, the top priority of its presidency.

At the Polowce-Peschatka border crossing between Poland and Belarus, which has been closed since June 2023 due to migrant pressure, the atmosphere is reminiscent of the Cold War era. Behind a huge metal fence reinforced with barbed wire at the top, every few meters there are soldiers in full military gear, who are looking unblinkingly in the direction of Belarus.

General Czosnek says they learned a lesson after the Russian attack on Ukraine. "Experience shows us that the situation in Ukraine today, perhaps, would have been different if they had been better prepared. We want to be ready for any possible aggressive step by Russia," says Czosnek.

Construction of the Eastern Shield began in the summer of last year. By 2028, several lines of defense are planned to be built along the 800-kilometer eastern border - along the border with Belarus, along the border with the Kaliningrad region, a Russian enclave squeezed between Poland and Lithuania with access to the Baltic Sea, and along the Suwalki corridor, a sparsely populated area between Poland and Lithuania , which has strategic significance because it is the only land connection between the Baltic countries and the rest of the European Union. Russia would probably try to cut that corridor in the event of an attack on the Baltics.

 

Trenches, concrete, mines, thermal imaging cameras

Along the 500 kilometers of Poland's eastern border, it is planned to establish a 400-meter-wide strip within which there will be an anti-tank trench, and then huge concrete obstacles, the so-called Dragon's Teeth.

 

Each of these three-legged concrete elements weighs 1.7 tons, and they are connected to each other by thick steel ropes.

 

Two hundred meters away, another row of these physical obstacles will be placed, and between them anti-tank mines that will be placed only in case of an immediate threat of invasion.

On the part of the border where it is not possible to make such a belt, because the land is privately owned, there are plans to build warehouses of such concrete blocks that could be quickly installed in the event of an attack.

"The entire border with Belarus will be physically and electronically protected by next April," says Brigadier General Robert Bagan.

The Polowce-Peschatka border crossing is located on the road between Brest in Belarus and Bialystok, the center of the Polish Podlaskie Voivodeship. That road is one of the possible invasion routes considering that there are several Belarusian military bases with several tens of thousands of soldiers in the vicinity of Brest.

Belarus is only a formally sovereign state because it is completely under the influence of Russia.

 

Electronic protection systems

In addition to physical barriers, electronic protection systems, thermal imaging cameras, and motion detectors are installed. Measures to strengthen the mobility of Polish forces are also planned, for example by strengthening bridges so that they can withstand the crossing of armored vehicles.

Along the 186-kilometer border with Belarus and the Kaliningrad region, a 5.5-meter-high metal fence was installed, additionally secured with barbed wire.

It was set up to prevent the entry of illegal migrants that Russia and Belarus are using to destabilize the European Union. These people are brought in organized from the Middle East and Africa and then they are sent to the border with Poland.

Polish officials point out that they are ready for two possible scenarios of destabilization: in the case of the instrumentalization of migrants and a direct military threat.

Almost all Western military aid to Ukraine passes through Poland. In addition to preparations to defend against a possible military attack, Poland is faced with constant cyber-attacks. Therefore, a 6,500-strong unit composed of soldiers and civilian IT experts was established. Last year, they recorded around 100,000 attempted cyber-attacks.