Poland showcased its rapidly expanding armed forces on August 15, the Polish Army Day, parading tanks, artillery, missile launchers and combat aircraft through Warsaw in a display intended to deter Russia and demonstrate the scale of the country’s rearmament.

Some 1,800 soldiers and about 270 vehicles took part, while dozens of aircraft flew over the capital. 

The hardware included Abrams, K2 and Leopard tanks, Borsuk infantry fighting vehicles, Krab and K9 howitzers, HIMARS launchers, Patriot air-defence systems, F-16 and F-35 fighters and Apache attack helicopters. More than 20 Polish and allied vessels simultaneously joined a naval parade near Gdynia.

President Karol Nawrocki, Poland’s constitutional commander-in-chief and a conservative elected with opposition Law and Justice (PiS) support, hinted that efforts to build a strong army by both the previous PiS government and the incumbent administration of Prime Minister Donald Tusk – to which Nawrocki is fiercely opposed – should be taken out of “political rivalry after 2027”.

Still, Nawrocki challenged the Tusk government’s much-trumpeted participation in the EU’s defence-loan programme known as SAFE.

“We cannot lock our security in a safe whose keys are held in other European capitals,” Nawrocki said, adding that the Polish armed forces’ banners carried the words “God, Honour and Fatherland, not SAFE”.

Polish armed forces currently comprise about 220,000 personnel, twice as many as six years ago, and the government plans a 500,000-strong force including 200,000 reservists. 

Warsaw plans to spend about PLN201bn (€47bn) on defence this year, equivalent to approximately 5% of GDP under the government’s calculation and 4.68% under NATO’s standardised methodology — the alliance’s fourth-highest proportion after Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

The Warsaw parade’s emphasis on heavy equipment sharpened criticism that Poland continues to concentrate on expensive crewed platforms. At the same time, Ukraine’s war of defence against Russia has demonstrated the importance of mass-produced drones and electronic warfare.

Ukraine’s drone units have repeatedly defeated NATO’s more traditional units in exercises.

During the relatively recent Combined Resolve 26-07 exercise, held in Germany in April–May, Ukraine’s 412th Nemesis drone brigade soundly defeated the US 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, The Wall Street Journal reported last week.

“Today, a strategic effect can be achieved with relatively cheap solutions,” General Dariusz Łukowski, the Defence Ministry’s strategy director, told Onet, a new website, on August 15. 

The overriding lesson from Ukraine, he added, was the need for “permanent transformation and permanent adaptation”.

Since the start of Russia's all-out war on Ukraine, Poland has grown wary of a Russian attack or a hybrid-war provocation. Poland has been building a layered air defence system aimed at countering a potential drone or missile attack as well as a more traditional fortifications systems along its northern and eastern borders with Russia and Belarus.