Andrzej Duda gave the estimate at a conference with senior army commanders in Warsaw, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
The president said: “We are giving Ukraine more military assistance than we have ever given to any one country in history.”
He added: “According to our estimates, we have so far supplied Ukraine with USD 1.7 billion in military aid alone.”
‘We expect that our military inventory will be replenished’
Duda told the conference that this assistance "came from the resources" of the Polish armed forces.
“We expect that our military inventory will be replenished, including through procedures of allied support,” he added.
NATO faces 'unprecedented threat’
Speaking about the war in Ukraine, the president said that “the threat of a potential future Russian aggression against NATO territory hasn’t subsided.”
He added that NATO faced an “unprecedented threat” after the Kremlin invaded Ukraine and “subjugated Belarus."
The allied response “must be complete,” Duda told the conference.
Eastern flank must be strengthened
“It must involve a military strengthening, especially of the countries on the alliance’s eastern flank,” the president said.
He added that "the army of today should be not only modern, but also much stronger in numbers.”
Duda also told the conference that the war in Ukraine "has demonstrated the value of territorial army soldiers."
He said: “It turns out that a slightly trained infantry soldier with a rocket launcher on their back is deadly dangerous to Russian armoured vehicles, including tanks. That’s a very important insight for us.”
Duda told army generals that Monday’s conference was the most important event of its kind in more than a decade "given the Ukraine security crisis, arguably the worst such crisis since World War II."
Poland to set up two new army divisions
Meanwhile, Defence Minister Mariusz Błaszczak announced at the conference that Poland would create “two new army divisions” to be stationed “along the Vistula river, in central Poland” in response to the war in neighbouring Ukraine.
Monday was day 110 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, wydarzenia.interia.pl