WARSAW (Reuters) – America will formally open a brand new air defence base in northern Poland on Wednesday, as Warsaw seeks to reassure residents that NATO ensures their safety amid jitters after Donald Trump’s presidential election victory.
Located within the city of Redzikowo close to the Baltic coast, the bottom has been within the works because the 2000s and Warsaw says it symbolises the truth that its army alliance with Washington stays strong regardless of who’s within the White Home.
“It took some time, however this building proves the geostrategic resolve of america,” Polish International Minister Radoslaw Sikorski mentioned in a video posted to X on Tuesday.
“The Polish-American alliance is powerful, no matter who governs in Warsaw and Washington.”
Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who has pressured his heat ties with Trump, is ready to attend the bottom opening ceremony. On Monday, he instructed reporters that Trump had known as him with greetings for Polish independence day.
Trump’s previous criticism has unnerved some NATO members, as he has vowed that below his management america wouldn’t defend nations which don’t spend sufficient on defence.
Nevertheless, Poland says the actual fact it’s the alliance’s largest spender on defence relative to the dimensions of its economic system means it ought to don’t have anything to concern.
MISSILE SHIELD
Dubbed ‘Aegis Ashore’, the U.S. base at Redzikowo is a part of a broader NATO missile defend which the alliance says is able to intercepting short- to intermediate-range ballistic missiles.
Different key components of the defend embrace a second Aegis Ashore website in Romania, together with U.S. navy destroyers based mostly within the Spanish port of Rota and an early-warning radar within the Turkish city of Kurecik.
Russian and Belarussian officers mentioned they have been watching the NATO base fastidiously and would issue it into their army planning.
Moscow had already labelled it a risk to Russia way back to 2007, when the bottom was nonetheless within the planning levels. NATO says the defend is solely defensive.
The Redzikowo base was to some extent a “relic of a earlier period”, nonetheless, Marek Swierczynski, an analyst from think-tank Polityka Perception, instructed state information company PAP, because it was designed with a risk from Iran in thoughts somewhat than one from Russia.
Polish Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz mentioned on Monday the scope of the defend wanted to be expanded and Warsaw would focus on this with NATO and america.
NATO Secretary Basic Mark Rutte will meet Duda and Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw afterward Wednesday.
