Andrzej Duda hosted the meeting at the presidential palace in Warsaw on Thursday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
In attendance were Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Mariusz Błaszczak; Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau; the Polish ambassador to NATO, Tomasz Szatkowski; the chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces, Gen. Rajmund Andrzejczak; and Operational Commander Gen. Tomasz Piotrowski, according to officials.
Afterwards, Jacek Siewiera, who heads the president’s National Security Bureau (BBN), told reporters that the talks had focused on “measures to be taken in preparation for the July summit of the NATO alliance in Vilnius, Lithuania.”
He added: “These measures concern regional planning, force generation and the adjustment of NATO’s command structure to current challenges.”
Siewiera said the meeting also explored “current issues,” including “the performance of Poland’s air defence,” and mentioned “objects, including balloons, that have recently been spotted in Polish airspace.”
'Military object' found in Polish forest in April
The president and top defence officials also discussed the discovery of a “military object,” possibly a stray Russian missile, in a forest near the north-central city of Bydgoszcz in April, the PAP news agency reported.
Russian missile?
Announcing the results of a government inquiry, Defence Minister Mariusz Błaszczak said on May 11 that the Polish Armed Forces’ Airborne Operations Command had been alerted by Ukrainian officials about a possible Russian missile heading towards Poland on December 16.
The defence minister said that Poland in response raised combat readiness and Polish and American planes took off to monitor the situation, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
Moreover, "in line with procedures," the Airborne Operations Command notified the Polish Army’s Operational Commander, Gen. Tomasz Piotrowski, that “an unidentified object has entered Polish airspace,” according to Błaszczak.
But Błaszczak said the inquiry found Piotrowski "neglected to perform his duties by failing to inform" the government "about the object."
On May 12, Piotrowski issued a statement in which he urged “sense” and called on Poles not to let themselves be divided as a society amid a government inquiry into the “military object” found last month.
Defence minister, operational commander ‘working together’
Asked by reporters about the cooperation between the defence minister and the army’s operational commander, Siewiera said on Thursday: “Both sides definitely now have a much better understanding of the existing procedures, which need to be improved and clarified.”
The national security chief added that "Minister Błaszczak and Gen. Piotrowski are working together and are in constant contact by telephone regarding day-to-day operational activities.”
Siewiera also said that “it will be enormously important to update procedures and to discuss procedures and action steps with NATO allies.”
'There are problems with procedures': president
The Polish president said on Wednesday that the case of the “military object” found in a forest near Bydgoszcz showed that “there are problems with procedures, because the procedures were drawn up a long time ago.”
Duda added that the security situation created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “is unprecedented.”
The president stated: “It’s a question of cooperation, of working together to accomplish various tasks, of civilian control over the army as well as of purely military matters.”
He declared: “We are looking into this. We’ll be upgrading this, including NATO procedures.”
New security threat: 'balloons flying at high altitude'
Siewiera told reporters on Thursday: “The kind of situations that we’ve seen in recent days, such as balloons flying at high altitude and very low speed, very poorly visible, represent a very serious threat and a new challenge for the armed forces and security services.”
At the weekend, Poland’s Territorial Defence Force said it was searching for an unidentified object, probably a spy balloon, that entered the country’s airspace from Belarus on Friday evening, news outlets reported.
Thursday is day 449 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, tvp.info