Polish Deputy Minister of Defense Cezary Tomczyk said: "We are preparing for the conflict, and hope that the conflict will never happen. We are not building an army to serve press conferences, but building it on the assumption that the army must be ready to conduct national defense operations in extremely unfavorable conditions and we must have all necessary tools.
The Polish Deputy Minister of Defense added: "Everything we are doing in the fields of energy, infrastructure and finally military is aimed at ensuring the security of the country in the event of armed aggression.
Deputy Minister Cezary Tomczyk also said that Poland is building SAN - a comprehensive defense system against unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) within the framework of the "Eastern Shield" project. The East Shield is a project to build defense lines along Poland's border with Russia and Belarus.
Polish defense officials revealed that 80% of the capacity of the SAN system is designed for use in conflict.
Polish authorities announced plans to build fortifications along the border with Russia and Belarus in May 2024. The "East Shield" program is estimated to cost 10 billion zloty (about 2.5 billion USD) with the goal of completion by 2028.
The plan included digging trenches, deploying minefields, installing anti-tank obstacles and building an active surveillance system along the eastern border of Poland.
The first items were deployed in the border area with Russia's Kaliningrad region in early November 2024. At the end of that month, the Polish government announced that the first section had been completed, in which 3,500 concrete anti-tank obstacles were installed.
