British troops are providing engineering support to the Polish military at the nation’s border amid a dispute with Belarus.

According to the Ministry of Defence:

“Specialists from the 32 Engineer Regiment, the Royal Engineers, are providing support to Poland, a NATO ally and key European partner.  Personnel will support Polish troops with specific engineering tasks along the border including infrastructure support and repairing access roads, as well as planning support. They will be on task from the end of December and the deployment is expected to last until April.”

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said:

“Our commitment to European security is unwavering and we will always offer support to our allies. This non-combat support will assist Polish efforts to protect their border and pass on vital engineering expertise”

The Ministry of Defence add that this support follows the deployment of a reconnaissance unit on 11 November who worked with their Polish counterparts on ways the UK might be able to help.

“Additionally, a reconnaissance team have deployed to Lithuania to explore whether the UK can provide support to the nation who are facing similar pressures on their border. The small team will work alongside the Lithuanian military to establish if the UK can offer any expertise or capabilities to help counter current pressures. The UK already has 150 personnel based in Poland under NATO’s enhanced Forward Presence as part of the US led battle-group in the country. Here, UK personnel train with NATO forces on a regular basis, from small training drills to full-scale battlegroup exercises.”

Poland and Lithuania, along with their Baltic neighbour Latvia, have been under significant pressure from migration originating from Belarus and facilitated by the Lukashenko regime for a number of months.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
Twitter

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

47 COMMENTS

  2. NATO is plenty strong enough. As in every situation reasonable people don’t want to fight, but when they find they have no alternative they will fight, and stay fighting until tyranny is defeated, until the bitter end. We’ve dealt with braggarts and jumped up corporals before. We’ve dealt with those who think they can take what they want because they have greater ‘will’. We are a peaceful nation, who prefers not to threaten its neighbours and friends. But we have a track record of resisting bullies when they come calling, stick in hand.

    • Jay R referred to political willpower as lacking and in that he is quite correct. Biden and Boris both have zero political willpower to confront Putin head-on.
      And whilst I’m at it, neither of those two have much grey matter between the ears. Putin has both political experience and intelligence.

      • Dont be limited to Biden and Boris.

        That’s the case of the great majority of the occidentals nations.

        Under the public opinions, none of our “heads” want to take any risk..

        They are rather weak for internal politics and its literally the void for the rest.

        Just look at the US waiting 2020 to see China being a rising super power ?
        It’s something we see since 20 years…

        I dont understand how civilian/Normal people can see so much and not the “all mighty government”.

      • That seems counterintuitive. US intelligence is deliberately releasing analysis that Putin may invade Ukraine and the UK, US and France are deepening engagement with Ukraine and Eastern Europe.

        I hope Putin does not use stereotypes of Biden or Boris as a basis for decision making, that would indicate a lack of grey matter.

      • Boris Johnson may decide to kick off against Mad Vlad as it’ll create so much media noise, all the revelations of corruption and abuse of power will fly under the radar, he’ll spin it that he is the strong willed defender of freedom, the savior of Europe. Whilst giving UOR contracts to every mate in his phone contacts.

        Disclaimer: the above is said half in jest, but with a depressing ring of truth to it ☹

    • I was very tempted to disagree with you James….however you basic assumption is correct. However the question is would we all fight at once, together, or stand alone. The answer to that question leaves me cold. I actually don’t doubt that Britain, France and Italy would hold together, and a smattering of Eastern countries. But the rest? Who knows. Lets hope it’s not out to the test without a long drumbeat.

  4. Have you played dominoes?

    Do you understand European history?

    Areas of Lviv in the Ukraine, were Polish.
    The Soviets murdered the Poles
    The Poles will fight forward.
    The Slovak military will join in, primarily with air.
    The Hungarian mil I can not comment.
    eFP in yhe Baltics, if triggered, will react. Attacks on Estonia will result in Finland and Sweden joining in.

    Doesn’t take NATO leadership on this one, the Poles will lead in the Ukraine and if attacked, NATO will respond – Putin is posturing or playing a game where he wants to be the ‘victim’ of a police shooting and forever a martyr for mother Russia.

  5. Russian troll definitely detected , you do realize Jay R sorry Ivan that NATO and the UN helped stop the ethnic cleansing that the Serbs created in the Balkan wars when Russia stood there with its di#k in his hands, and going by what proper pros say this side of the border more training is needed Russian side , Afghan stats show it .

  6. What expertise can we offer ? Poland has long had land border issues than we have, unless we are dragging up old NI tactics ?

    • Expertise?

      Engineers are people everyone wants near their side – they are a great force multiplier and the RE I have met were always up for a scrape; intelligent and super skilled infanteers.

      Nothing to do with NI, are you trolling?

    • Old NI tactics? Which one? Have you forgotten the 6 years plus of combat engineering carried out on Herrick? RE combat engineers are some of the best trained and useful force multipliers we have in the Military. Sure the Polish lads can do engineering but we are NATO friends and allies and this shows unity and a willingness to help. Plus gets the lads a trip to Europe and an ongoing task.

    • RE has some specialist capabilites in defensive works honed in many recent conflicts and also in enabling rapid deployments by the Polish Military. I suspect there have been conversations in depth about what Poland needs. We are cooperating with Poland both as a NATO Ally and in other areas like Air Defence. This will be a response to a request from Poland – SoS was there very recently..

    • I would be interested to know how the Germans are reacting to the potential aggression in the Ukraine, proxy aggression on Poland’s boarder and the increasing tension on the border with the Baltic States……

      My guess would be, sod all, “we’re concentrating on Christmas Markets” message coming from Berlin.

      The UK has gutted it’s standing Army and Airforce, both hollowed out to the very edge of being in- effective, the lack of ‘depth’ makes it totally unsuited to an unthinkable European ground war.

      We are in the middle of converting our armed forces to a small out of area, expeditionary warfare centric equipped force, while the old enemy seems to be spoiling for a fight right nextdoor!

      Thank god Poland takes European security seriously and is rapidly building it’s armed forces up in a very capable way, with first rate US equipment.

      • And an interesting way of funding it!

        “It is better to be safe and a little bit more in debt,” Kaczynski said.

        Blaszczak said the Defence Ministry aimed to have more than 250,000 full-time soldiers and more than 50,000 members of the Territorial Defence Force, which is made up of professional and part-time volunteer soldiers. In 2020, there were around 110,000 full-time” soldiers.

        https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/poland-upgrade-army-using-funding-methods-first-deployed-fight-covid-2021-10-26/

        • A very capable force indeed Nigel, hats off to them…..

          All the Germans will do is run up the white flag and ask the Russians to please not litter the Autobahn on their way to the channel coast…

      • All good points.

        The ‘heavy metal’ side of the British Army is in bad order – 50-year-old recce vehicles (Scimitar), largely unmodernised Warriors from the mid-80s, unmodernised CR2s from the late-90s and AS90s from the early-90s. The numbers are small too. Have the troops done much relevant (high intensity warfighting) collective training since the end of Afghan ops in late 2014?

        Most of this equipment is based in the UK – hard to push forward quickly to eastern Europe if ‘the ballon goes up’, so we would have to deploy it to western Germany (Sennelager area, probably) for use as a NATO reserve, I guess? Which means the heavy lifting will have to be done largely by Poland and Germany – have they got enough kit and the political resolve?

        • Poland yes, well up for the fight, Germany nope….

          Germany will do the square route of absolutely sod all, like a rabbit caught in the headlights, they will freeze and then try to appease.

          I cant really understand why they are still in NATO to be honest Graham….

          Re our equipment, its in total disarray, obsolete kit and very late or cancelled replacements….

          Years of political meddling and piss poor program management, reinventing the wheel with bespoke UK solutions, has bled the coffers dry and left the Army with sod all..

          Time to pack in all this nonsense, if we suddenly had to rebuild our standing army and specifically its armoured capabilities, we should use tried and tested US tanks and equipment, just the same as Poland is doing…..

          • Great reply John. The Germans had a bad reputation in Afghanistan – they apparently did not go on patrol at night, so the story went. They have shed a lot of kit over the years (only 245 Leo 2s wheras they had nearly 2,500 Leo 1s at one time) and much of it is not battle ready.

            We agree that our heavy/medium kit is largely obsolescent and unmodernised.

            We once bought a lot of US SP artillery (M109, 175mm SP gun, 8″ SP Gun (?)) and the Honest John artillery rocket – but those SP guns were replaced by AS90, a good piece of kit in its day.

            BAE can build decent equipment. I don’t think we need to go to the US.

          • Afternoon Graham,

            I think its time to look again at the NATO charter, signatories need to pay 2% into the pot (at the very least) and actively engage in NATO commitments.

            THE US declared article 5 after 9/11, UK special forces had boots on the ground in Afghanistan within days in support.

            We grew to a size of 10,000 and paid a ‘very’ high cost for our commitment…..

            The Germans, did as little as they could possibly get away with, absolutely piss poor….

            They have allowed their military capability to wither on the vine.

            I would give Germany an ultimatum to step up to the plate, or sod off and start a Liberal Woke EU military force, that will go absolutely nowhere were there are angry men to fight … It would suit them down to the ground!

            I would make Poland and the UK, the key US European NATO hubs.

          • Thanks John, I am sure that the NATO Military Committee and political leaders have looked at the Charter several times since the end of the Cold War, but no bad thing to look again at it.
            I don’t know about British SF going into Afghanistan within days of 9/11 but that is what they would have done. I do know that a RM Commando deployed to the Tora Bora caves alongside US forces within weeks of 9/11-m they jumped off from Ex Saif Sareea II.
            We certainly did pay a high price in blood and treasure to hunt down AQ in Afghanistan – I disapproved of the mission creep though.
            I agree that the Germans were lame, but I was frankly surprised they deployed at all to a real shooting war. Perhaps that was some sort of progress. German capability is very weak, as you say. Barely 250 tanks. Much equipment not working. Readiness poor. Most blame an ex-Defence Minister, Ursula von der Layen, who now runs the EU. Germany has been getting away with only paying about 1% GDP into Defence for years, but say they are now aiming for the bare minimum target of 2%. Trouble is we need Germany in the front line, so they cannot sod off.
            I would add the 3 Baltic nations to your hubs list.

          • Good points Graham….

            There is certainly a strong case for getting Sweden, Finland and the Ukraine into NATO, it would slam the gate in Russia’s face….

            As Russia tries to threaten the West regarding NATO expansion, I would go toe to toe with them and make them back down. Strength is the only thing they understand and respect.

  8. Sappers have exactly the right skill set to help here. Also great “free” training for them. Deployments like this are fantastic to develop those involved at whatever rank or role they are in.

    • Not to mention, ahem, beautiful Polish females and some quality beer… just saying like. @Airborne, would you have objected to a trip to Poland?

      • Yeah, like you said, ahem, some polish female and some beers can help soldiers to support some difficult conditions…
        It’s always a good opportunity to see the global.. positions.

      • Mate I’ve only been to Poland once, late 90s if my memory serves me, and that unfortunately was an ABEX onto an old Commie Airfield and training area (interesting though as there were still signs knocking about warning about chemical weapons residue in the soil, and some of the heavy drop landed north of the DZ and in the trees and by the time we got to them they were ripped to bits and scavenged by the locals lol). But I digress and yes beautiful and fun Polish ladies, good beer, tough proud people and a great history, damn yes I want to go back now!!!!!..

    • I think the “human” side of the mission can be not so easy to bear for the soldiers, depend on the situation where they are…

      I agree on the opportinuty but… dont forget the distressed humans involved in this.

  9. NATOs weakness is not it’s military, it is the lack of political will power to act against it’s ultimate nemesis.

    Correct. There is no political willpower from either Biden or Boris, who represent the two most powerful members of Nato.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here