The US officially opened a new missile defense base in northern Poland today. This comes as Warsaw seeks to reassure its citizens that NATO guarantees their security amid concerns following Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election, Reuters reports, quoted by BTA.
The base, located in the town of Redzhikovo, near the Baltic coast of the country, has been built since the beginning of the century. According to the authorities in Poland, it symbolizes the strength of the military alliance with the US, regardless of who is in power in the White House.
„It took time, but the object proves the geostrategic determination of the United States”, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Szykorski said in a comment last night on the X social network. “The Polish-American alliance is strong, regardless of who rules in Washington and Warsaw,”, he added.
Conservative Polish President Andrzej Duda, who has emphasized his good relationship with Trump, will attend today's ceremony to open the base. At the beginning of the week, he announced that Trump had congratulated him on the occasion of Poland's Independence Day.
Trump's previous criticisms have worried some NATO members after he threatened that under his leadership the US would not defend countries that do not spend enough on defense.
However, Polish officials stress that the country has nothing to fear, as it spends the most on defense relative to the size of its economy among the alliance countries.
The Regjikovo base is part of NATO's wider missile shield, which the alliance says is capable of intercepting short- and medium-range ballistic missiles. Other key elements of the shield are a similar base in Romania, US destroyers in the Spanish port of Rota and an early warning radar in the Turkish city of Kurecik.
Russian and Belarusian authorities have said they are closely monitoring the NATO base and taking it into account in their military planning.
Moscow as early as 2007. identified the base as a threat when it was still in the planning stages. NATO claims that the shield has purely defensive functions.
Polish Minister of Defense Władysław Kośniak-Kamisz announced at the beginning of the week that Warsaw will discuss with NATO and the US the possibility of expanding the base in Regzikovo.
Later today, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte will meet with President Duda and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.