Poland Will Respond To The West-2025 Exercise

The country's defense minister announced the Iron Defender exercise.

NATO is an alliance for peace, but the world will not defend itself, so the countries of the North Atlantic Alliance are increasingly investing in defense, Poland's defense minister told reporters. And while Belarus and Russia are planning the West-2025 exercise, Poland is holding its own drills to show NATO's strength, writes Belsat.

Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz made the comments to reporters during the NATO summit in The Hague. One of the questions concerned the Russian-Belarusian exercise "Zapad-2025" scheduled for September.

Kosiniak-Kamyszyniak said that Poland is preparing to hold NATO's divisional exercise "Iron Defender" ("Żelazny Obrońca") in September. From Poland, the 18th Mechanized Division will take part in the exercise, there will also be representatives of the United States, Turkey, Slovakia, Finland, Canada and others.

According to the minister, he ordered the exercise at the beginning of the year to demonstrate NATO's power:

"This is an Alliance for Peace, but the world will never defend itself," Kosiniak-Kamysz said of NATO. - Freedom requires strength, peace requires strength."

It was previously reported that the exercise was conceived as a response to West 2025. When asked if this was the case, the minister responded positively:

"Yes, these are exercises demonstrating the strength of the Polish army and our alliance. Of course, at the same time the Russian side is conducting exercises on the territory of Belarus, so the strength of the Alliance, the strength of the Polish army, our relations, skills and capabilities should be clearly shown."

The exercises in Belarus have often alarmed neighboring countries, as Belarus acts as a co-aggressor in Russia's attack on Ukraine. The full-scale war, which began in 2022, also kicked off with an attack from Belarus, where Russian troops were allegedly on exercises. The Belarusian Democratic Forces warned other countries that any possible large-scale military exercises on the territory of Belarus and any such exercises of the Russian Armed Forces on the territory of Belarus create and increase the threat to the sovereignty and independence of Belarus.

The large-scale Belarus-Russia exercise Zapad-2025, scheduled for September, was first going to be held under the western borders of Belarus. In late May, the Ministry of Defense of Belarus suddenly promised that "the main maneuvers" of the joint military exercises "Zapad-2025" with Russia would be moved away from the borders of NATO countries deep into the territory of Belarus. In addition, "the parameters of the exercises will be reduced."

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski noted in a commentary for "Belsat" a day earlier: Poland has signals that the "West-2025" exercises are allegedly moved further away from the Polish border, but does not know how true it is. He added: Vladimir Putin "turned out to be quite a skillful tactician who knew how to exploit the mistakes of the West, but a bad strategist, as Russia is paying huge sums for a war it cannot win."

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky suggested that Alexander Lukashenko "is afraid that we in Ukraine will think as if the presence of a contingent at the exercises is preparation for offensive actions." Lithuanian Prime Minister Gintautas Palutskas said the Belarus-Russia Zapad-2025 military exercises do not pose additional threats to Lithuania, and NATO intelligence services do not see any threats in the exercises right now.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told "Belsat" that he does not fear a Russian attack during or after the exercises: "Our Alliance is so strong today that if Russia tries to do something, they know that our reaction will be devastating. So it would be very, very unwise on the part of Vladimir Putin and his aide in Belarus, in Minsk, to do something against us."

NATO increases defense spending, Poland at the forefront

NATO nations are expected to formalize a new defense spending target at the summit: 5% of gross domestic product from a country instead of the current 2%. NATO members have tentatively agreed on such a scheme: by 2035 to bring spending to at least 3.5% of GDP directly on defense and at least 1.5% of GDP on investments related to defense infrastructure and production.

Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysh confirmed: there is agreement, 5% of GDP on defense will be the main decision of the summit. He noted that the changes regarding defense spending in Europe took place at the beginning of this year under pressure from the US. Thanks to the US position, "Europe has woken up", Kosiniak-Kamysh is convinced. And thanks to Poland's presidency in the Council of the European Union, the minister reminded, the EU approved an increase in its defense spending by €150 billion.

Not all NATO states fulfilled the agreement on 2% of GDP for defense last year - it is expected that they will do so only this year. Poland, on the other hand, was close to 2% back in 2014, decided to allocate more than 4% of GDP to defense in 2023, and last year gave out a NATO record 4.12% - almost $35 billion, half of Belarus' entire GDP.

The minister believes that Europe has no choice, and quoted Napoleon: "A state that cannot maintain its own army will feed someone else's."

Kosiniak-Kamysz added that Poland is NATO's third largest army, with over 200,000 active-duty soldiers. He also talked about important decisions for Poland. Norway will send F-35 jets to patrol Polish skies because they are recording more and more airspace violations over the Baltic. Patriot air defense systems from Germany will remain in Poland at least until the end of the year. Australia promises to send an AWACS early detection aircraft to Poland. All this, according to the minister, is linked to Poland's role as a country without which it is impossible to transfer equipment to Ukraine.

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