Polish Prime Minister Presents First Completed Section of Eastern Shield on Border With Russia, Belarus

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has visited the first section of the border with Russia where the Eastern Shield fortifications have been installed. He wrote about it on social media.

According to the Polish prime minister, the first section of the Eastern Shield on the border with Russia is already fully operational.

‘During the meeting with the soldiers 200 metres from the border, I felt really safe,’ he wrote.

During the visit, Tusk also said that measures to improve Poland's eastern border ‘are an investment in peace’.

He noted that ‘the better the Polish border is protected, the harder it will be for those with bad intentions to get to it’.

‘We will spend billions of zlotys on this, but the whole of Europe is already watching with great pleasure and will support, if necessary, these investments and our actions,’ Polskie Radio quoted Tusk as saying.

The Eastern Shield project, which involves the construction of fortifications on Poland's border with Belarus and Russia, was announced in May.

The Ministry of Defence of Poland said that under the Eastern Shield programme, the ministry plans to purchase heavy engineering equipment worth up to PLN 600 million.

On 1 November, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced that construction of the Eastern Shield fortification system on the borders with Russia and Belarus had begun.