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Poland could pass on PATRIOTs from Germany to Ukraine 01/12/2022 | Fabio Di Felice

Some days ago, Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defense, Mariusz Blaszczak , announced he was accepting a German offer to deploy PATRIOT systems inside Polish territory. The offer came following the mid-November incident in which some debris of an apparently Ukrainian-launched S-300 (SA-10 Grumble) air defense missile crashed into Poland and killed 2 people. After this acceptance of Germany’s proposal, made to protect the Ally and NATO’s eastern airspace, Polish government officials look oriented to press Berlin to send those defense systems straight to Ukraine instead. Now the seemingly unnecessary row with Germany — driven in part by internal politics in Warsaw — has turned into a major political issue between the countries. Not confirming the Blaszczak’s public statement, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda office released a declaration made by their principal, specifying that if the weapon systems may be transferred in some form by Germany, regardless of where they will be stationed, they should protect primarily Polish citizens and Polish territory. Despite the President’s defusing declaration, the option to move the PATRIOT batteries straight to Ukraine hit an immediate pushback from the German government, making it clear that the Air Defense systems must be intended for use on NATO territory only and as part NATO’s integrated air defense, as underlined by the German Defense Minister, Christine Lambrecht, echoed by Germany’s ambassador in Poland, Thomas Bagger. The reason behind the tentative to send the PATRIOT systems to Ukraine may come down to internal politics with country’s security issue facing a re-new anti-German sentiment linked with a Polish war reparation note of €1.3 trillion, submitted to Berlin, for the devastation caused by the country’s 1939-45 occupation. A reparation issue that German government considers settled decades ago and nothing is now owed. There are also other internal reasons, as the right-wing government in Poland and some of the parties being very critical of Germany’s policies in the last years in many respects, including in defense, or the unfounded allegations of Germany promoting Russian interests and supporting Putin’s war with Ukraine. Waiting Polish final decision, the German PATRIOT systems offered should be new PAC-3 or upgraded PAC-2 configuration level Anti-Tactical Missile (ATM) to Guidance Enhanced Missile – Tactical Ballistic Missile (GEM-T) level.


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