Poland has decided to start producing anti-personnel mines for the first time since the Cold War and plans to deploy them along its eastern border and may export them to Ukraine, the deputy defense minister told Reuters.
Joining a wider regional shift that has seen almost all European countries bordering Russia, with the exception of Norway, announce plans to withdraw from the global treaty banning such weapons, Poland wants to use anti-personnel mines to strengthen its borders with Belarus and Russia.
"We are interested in large quantities as soon as possible," Deputy Defense Minister Pawel Zalewski told Reuters.
The mines will be part of "Eastern Shield," a defense program aimed at strengthening Poland's borders with Belarus and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, he said.
Asked if production of mines could begin next year, once the process of withdrawing from the Ottawa Convention is completed, Zalewski said: "I would very much like that... We have such needs."
Poland began the process of withdrawing from the Ottawa Convention in August and had previously said it could start producing anti-personnel mines if necessary, but that no formal decision had been made.
Zalewski's comments are the first confirmation from Warsaw that it will proceed with this action.
According to the Landmine and Cluster Munitions Monitor, Poland told the UN in 1995 that it had abandoned the production of anti-personnel mines in the mid-1980s and the export of such weapons had ceased.
Belma, the state-owned company that already supplies the Polish military with several other types of mines, said Poland will be supplied with millions of mines under the East Shield program to secure its 800 km (500 mile) eastern border.
"We are preparing for Polish demand... to reach 5-6 million mines of all types," Belma CEO Jaroslaw Zakrzewski told Reuters.
He added that, while the defense ministry has not yet placed an order, the company will be able to produce up to 1.2 million mines of all types, including anti-personnel mines, next year.
Belma currently produces around 100,000 mines per year. /Telegrafi/
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