Gen. Bogusław Samol made the claim in an interview with Polish state news agency PAP on Tuesday.
Samol said that after being appointed commander of the 16th Mechanised Division, based in Poland's northern Pomorskie region, in September 2009, he prepared wide-ranging training exercises for his troops.
The former senior military official added: “At the time, I had two inspections under CFE, by Belarusians and Russians. This happened even though Russia suspended its participation in the CFE in 2007.”
Samol stated: “I took charge of the division on September 1 and in early January, we had an inspection by Belarus, and two months later by Russia.”
He told the PAP news agency that “the inspections had to be complied with as such were the decisions of my superiors.”
Asked who had approved the inspections at the political level, even though Russia had suspended its participation in the CFE, Samol said he "kept asking" himself "this question to this day."
Poland’s defence minister at the time was Bogdan Klich from the centrist Civic Platform (PO) party, which was in power from 2007 to 2015, the PAP news agency reported.
The 1992 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) limited key armaments from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains between NATO and the former members of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact, which ceased to exist in 1991, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a US think tank.
In 2007, Russia announced it was suspending the implementation of the CFE, and in June 2023 Moscow said it was withdrawing from the treaty, the PAP news agency reported.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, launching the largest military campaign in Europe since World War II.
Tuesday is day 573 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, Defence24, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation
