The Polish armed forces chief of staff General Wieslaw Kukula has ordered that Poland has to prepare for “full-scale conflict.”
General Kukula said that troop numbers on the eastern border with Russia and Belarus will increase by August from 6,000 to 8,000.
He said on Wednesday, “Today, we need to prepare our forces for full-scale conflict, not an asymmetric-type conflict.”
The Polish army is around 190,000 strong and within the next few years Poland are planning to increase their military by 300,000.
The deputy defence minister Pawel Bejda said that they want to have a rearguard of some 9,000 soldiers to be able to deploy within 48 hours.
Over the weekend Chinese soldiers arrived in Belarus to hold joint military exercises close to the Polish border.
Beijing’s defence ministry said on Sunday the military exercises is called “Eagle Assault” which started on Monday in Brest, which is located on the Polish border.
Belarus’s government said the military exercises “will allow … the laying of a foundation for further development of Belarusian-Chinese relations in the field of joint training of troops.”
Martin Sebena, a lecturer at the University of Hong Kong warned that this means there is further support for Russia and their allies from Beijing.
Sebena who is a specialist in China-Europe relations told the South China Morning Post, “The exercise will overlap with the NATO summit and takes place on the … border where Belarus for many months has ‘weaponised’ migrant flows to pressure Poland – and by extension, the EU and NATO.”
Sebena scontinued, “It adds two extra layers to the Polish perception. First, the Poles have been reducing train transport from China via the Malaszewicze hub [near Brest] in fears of it being used for tariff circumvention, while China has worked hard to increase train-based overland trade from western China to Europe – with this hub being basically the only place where those trains enter through the EU.
“Second, the Polish president has recently been warmly welcomed in China, and since the Poles will see this exercise as directed at them, hence questions are arising in Poland about how genuine the Chinese side was.”
