Shield East project based on Ukrainian experience - Polish diplomat
The Shield East project is designed to protect Polish territory against an incursion from Russia and Belarus, and is based on Ukrainian experience.
This was stated in an interview with Ukrinform by Poland’s Charge d’affaires in Ukraine, Piotr Lukasiewicz.
As the diplomat noted, the Shield is intended to protect Poland from a possible invasion by Russia and Belarus.
"The origins of this this project come from the effort to protect against direct aggression, especially from the Belarus territory, where the regime is bringing migrants from several countries in the Middle East and Africa. It sounds very bad, but they are actually ‘importing’ people to invade Polish territory. So that's why we built a so-called barrier between Poland and Belarus," said Lukasiewicz.
He added that the Shield East project is a continuation of this idea of preparing the territory in terms of fortifications, barriers, shelters, and resilience of local communities.
"This is directly drawn from the Ukrainian experience," the Polish diplomat emphasized.
Lukasiewicz emphasized that the example of Bucha and Irpin taught Europeans, especially in Poland, that "you just cannot afford murderers and rapists getting into the territory of our country".
"You cannot spare a single kilometer of the territory because then the cruelty happens as we know. So this is our big lesson from the Ukrainian war, so that’s why we are spending 10 billion for the next five years to build these defenses. By the way, the Fins, Latvians, and Lithuanians are doing the same," stated the diplomat.
As Ukrinform reported earlier, by 2028, Warsaw will have erected 700 km long fortifications, detection and warning systems, advanced bases, logistics hubs and anti-drone systems on the border with Russia and Belarus as part of the large-scale Shield East program.
In 2022, Poland built a 5.5m high and 186km long barrier on the border with Belarus, and also installed a modern electronic surveillance system.
This was a response to Belarus and Russia orchestrating an artificial crisis on the border, instrumentalizing migrants on Belarus’s borders with Poland and the Baltic States from the summer of 2021.