Andrzej Duda made the statement in the Baltic port of Nowy Świat on Tuesday, the interia.pl website reported.
The president attended a joint tactical exercise featuring Polish and NATO troops, as well as police officers and border guards, on the Vistula Lagoon in northern Poland, near Russia’s westernmost region of Kaliningrad.
Codenamed Zalew-23 (Lagoon-23), the drills comprised operations in the Bay of Gdańsk, reconnaissance of the Polish border in the Vistula Lagoon area and practicing responses to military and hybrid threats, according to officials.
Duda was accompanied at the exercise by the Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Mariusz Błaszczak.
'The primary issue is to strengthen the defence power of our army'
The president told reporters: “The absolutely fundamental, primary issue is to strengthen the defence power of our army, to equip it with modern hardware.”
Duda stressed the role of Poland’s new waterway linking the Bay of Gdańsk and the Vistula Lagoon through the Vistula Spit.
He said the canal, launched last year, was of “strategic importance for defending Poland’s territory and borders."
The president cautioned that Russia’s Kaliningrad region was nearby.
Duda praised the various forces taking part in the Zalew-23 exercise, including the Polish Army’s 16th Mechanised Division, NATO troops and Polish police officers and border guard personnel.
He said: “Many agencies and many types of armed forces have participated in these drills, which have been conducted very skilfully.”
The president added that, together with Błaszczak and the commanders of the various forces, he “watched closely how the different parts of the exercise were coordinated."
“We are pleased with how the drills went,” he stated.
Duda and Błaszczak also met with soldiers from Poland’s 16th Mechanised Division, according to officials.
Zalew-23 drills in Poland’s new waterway near Russia
The Zalew-23 exercise featured some 2,500 soldiers from the Polish Army, Navy and Air Force, as well as troops from NATO’s battalion-size battlegroup stationed in Poland as part of the alliance’s Enhanced Forward Presence (eFP), reporters were told.
The drills involved some 500 pieces of "combat-focused and logistical-support equipment," the Polish president’s office said.
The Zalew-23 exercise was designed to test the Polish Army’s ability to respond to military and non-military threats from the sea, using Poland’s new waterway through the Vistula Spit near the border with Russia, according to the interia.pl website.
Another aim was to test the Polish Army’s ability to cooperate with the Territorial Army, police and the Border Guard agency, according to officials.
Vistula Spit
The Bay of Gdańsk and the Vistula Lagoon are separated by the Vistula Spit, but are now connected through the new waterway.
Poland’s new canal through the Vistula Spit is designed to allow ships to enter the Polish port of Elbląg without passing through the Strait of Baltiysk in Russia's Kaliningrad region, according to officials.
Tuesday is day 419 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: interia.pl, prezydent.pl