WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland’s biggest military parade since the Cold War takes place in Warsaw on Tuesday as the NATO-member country flexes its military muscle in what the government hopes will be both a message to Moscow and to voters ahead of elections in October.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made boosting the armed forces a priority for Poland’s ruling nationalists Law and Justice (PiS), and with the election campaign in full swing the immense display of military hardware provides a chance to burnish their security credentials.
“This parade will be different from the previous ones; we will be able to see how the process of modernising the equipment of the Polish Army is progressing,” Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said on Sunday.
The Armed Forces Day parade, taking place on the 103rd anniversary of Poland’s victory over the Soviet Union in the Battle of Warsaw, will see 2,000 soldiers from Poland and other NATO countries march through the capital accompanied by 200 items of military equipment and 92 aircraft.
Equipment on display will include M1A1 Abrams tanks bought from the United States, South Korean K2 tanks and K9 self-propelled howitzers as well as HIMARS rocket launchers and Patriot air defence systems.
Polish-made Borsuk infantry fighting vehicles and Rosomak armoured personnel carriers will also take part.
PiS, in power since 2015, says the parade will demonstrate how it is rebuilding the army after years of under-investment under the previous administration. The party has vowed to double the size of the army and spend around 4% of gross domestic product (GDP) on defence this year.
However, opposition lawmakers say the government is using the military for its own political gain.
“Using the Polish Army for electoral agitation is a disgrace to PiS… No to the politicisation of the army!,” Michal Szczerba, a lawmaker from the largest opposition party, the liberal Civic Platform (PO), wrote on social media.
PiS remains the largest party in most opinion polls, but its lead is narrow and it looks unlikely to win a majority.
(Reporting by Alan Charlish, additional reporting by Kuba Stezycki, editing by Angus MacSwan)
