The General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland decided to disclose details on the progress in the implementation of the East Shield (Polish: Tarcza Wschód) national defense initiative launched by the Polish government to fortify its eastern borders with belarus and the russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
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Currently, about 100 km of the border with the russian federation and its satellite are protected. This is despite the fact that the East Shield initiative was initiated in May 2024, and the length of Poland's land border with the russian federation and Belarus is about 620 km.
In fact, the actual length of the fortified section of the Polish border is even less, as the declared 100 km includes "materials stored in warehouses". At the same time, the length of the actually fortified border with potential adversaries was not disclosed by the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces, but they noted that by the end of the year the total indicator of actually and potentially existing fortifications, due to warehouse stocks, will be 200 km.
It should be notet, that warehouse storage means 16 existing sections and 7 more, the creation of which should begin in the near future. On them by mid-October this year should concentrate about 300 thousand concrete anti-tank barriers, as well as elements of bunkers, barbed wire, etc.
"In peacetime, the materials remain in specially designated storage areas. This ensures the accessibility of the territory for residents and the economy, as well as the ability of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland to quickly deploy barriers at the right time and in the right place," noted in the statement published by the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces.
For some reason, the Polish military is not too embarrassed by what they also managed to boast about - just to transport 300 thousand concrete barriers requires 10 thousand trips of heavy-duty trucks.
How long it will take is unknown, but by this time it will also be necessary to add time for installing the barriers themselves, building bunkers, stretching barbed wire, laying mines and possibly also digging trenches, anti-tank ditches, etc. as the Eastern Shield project involves the creation of a complex system of barriers:
That is, what looked quite good and complex on the slides of the Polish military more than two years ago has turned into a "stockpiling" in reality. Moreover, it is quite possible that Poland continues to implement this very plan, without updates that should concern the creation of defense against drones.
It seems that Warsaw does not understand the risks of simply not having time to build this defense line from the collected materials, if the russians really decide to test its effectiveness...
Defense Express reported earlier on how South Korea adapts Ukrainian anti-drone tunnels for maritime operations in exercises with the U.S. We also wrote, that russia tested the Dragon drones against Ukraine's mesh tunnels.
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