Polish army unveils joint military infrastructure projects with US companies as relations sour

By Jo Harper

WARSAW (AA) – The Polish defense minister said on Monday that the country's army has acquired machines enabling the rapid construction of military infrastructure projects along with US companies.

“Many such places can be created in a very short time. This is Polish-American cooperation,” Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz told a press conference in Warsaw.

The announcement comes a day after a major diplomatic fallout between Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski and tech billionaire Elon Musk, an ally of US President Donald Trump, over support for Ukraine.

The US has about 10,000 troops stationed in Poland and had been pre-Trump a big backer of Poland’s logistical support for Kyiv in its war with Russia.

Kosiniak-Kamysz said that in mid-January the 2nd Regional Logistics Base signed an agreement with the US company M.I.C. Industries on the purchase of a system for the rapid construction of infrastructure facilities UBM (Ultimate Building Machine).

The minister explained that the machine produces shelters, warehouses, hangars in a short time. “It is such a large printer, so to speak, which is able to build something in a short time that is absolutely necessary for the Eastern Shield, and in fact for many places in Poland, for our security,” he said.

"In building the Eastern Shield, the largest post-WWII security, deterrence and defense program, the largest logistical investment on the Polish-Belarusian, Polish-Russian border, on the border of NATO's eastern flank, building the largest fortifications, drone and anti-drone systems, we made the decision to also purchase the most modern equipment to do it quickly and innovatively."

The Eastern Shield is a multi-billion dollar military and security plan to secure the Polish border with Belarus and Russia.

Trump has suggested that the US reduce its presence in Europe, and that it could remove troops from Germany, Poland and the Baltic States. European countries have sought various methods to entice the US to maintain troop levels, adopting a largely transactional and commercial rhetoric designed to appeal to Trump.