Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak met with F-16 and F-22 fighter pilots taking part in the NATO Air Shielding mission in Łask.  At the end of July, six US F-22 Raptor fighter jets were deployed to Poland as part of a NATO ‘air cover’ mission.

The mission brings together NATO-led allied air and missile defence units and is intended to create a ‘near-continuous shield from the Baltic to the Black Sea’. This is one of the follow-ups to the Nato summit in Madrid.

“Today, together with American pilots and soldiers, we are showing what a true alliance and true cooperation for the common good and security is. This security is reaching a higher and higher level”, said the Prime Minister.

Mateusz Morawiecki noted that the NATO mission in Poland cares not only for Polish security, but also for the security of the entire region.

“Today, Polish pilots together with American partners are not only patrolling the Polish sky, but also take care of the security of the entire eastern flank of NATO. Together with our allies we are stronger”, he assessed.

The head of the Polish government stressed that the war in Ukraine showed that one should take care of own security by developing own military. “Reality brutally verifies the naivety that wars are a thing of the past. History shows that as soon as one country thinks it is already safe, then an attack often follows”, he pointed out.

“We never want foreign and hostile troops attack Poland again. We want to cooperate with our allies and we do it. We are part of the strongest military alliance in the history of the world, we are part of NATO. We follow the principle that there is no strong state without a strong army. However, you cannot build a strong army without a state with a strong foundation. This has been our primary task”, said Mateusz Morawiecki.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński