Poland has broken ground on a defensive line along its border with Russia and Belarus amid growing tensions and is offering Ukraine defense loans to fight the war on its front.
“Construction of the East Shield has begun!,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk declared on X Thursday.
The East Shield is part of a joint regional defense infrastructure plan from NATO’s eastern flank, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
It is expected to include new physical barriers and surveillance systems, the Kyiv Independent reported.
It is also expected to include satellites.
Several excavators could be seen digging up dirt, beginning at the border Poland shares with the Russian exclave Kaliningrad, according to the Kyiv Indepdenent.
In May, Tusk said Belarus has had “increasingly aggressive intentions towards Poland.” Warsaw has for years accused the staunch Russian ally of pushing migrants into the country.
The defensive line is also expected to deter illegal migration.
Poland allocated about $2.5 billion to the project, the largest operation to strengthen its eastern border since 1945, officials said.
The country is also offering Ukraine a “defense loan” to buy weapons from Polish factories on credit as its war from Russia drags on, according to reports.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said in an interview with Polsat News that this could have been offered at the start of Ukraine’s war with Russia.
Since it began, Poland has provided billions of dollars in aid to its southeastern neighbor.
The loan could be paid after the country’s reconstruction, Sikorski added.
The developments came as Russia launched an hours-long bombardment of drone attacks on Kyiv and other city centers that lasted into the day Saturday, injuring an 82-year-old woman and a police officer, according to reports.
Ukraine’s military reported that air defenses had destroyed 39 out of 71 Russian drones.
“This year, we have faced the threat of ‘Shahed’ drones almost every night,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on X, referring to the Iranian-made attack drones used by Russia.
“More pressure is urgently needed to limit Russia’s ability to produce such weapons,” he added.
Meanwhile, Zelensky blasted the United States, United Kingdom and Germany for “merely watching” as North Korean troops gather in Russia to train and prepare for combat in Ukraine.
Separately, a Russian court on Friday sentenced Robert Shonov, a Russian citizen and former US Consulate employee, to four years and 10 months in prison.
Shonov was arrested in May 2023 and accused of conspiracy and gathering information about the special operation in Ukraine.
The U.S. Embassy in Moscow said the charges are “completely false and unfounded.”
With Post wires
