The Polish Armaments Group, established by the Polish government in 2013, has signed cooperation agreements with Estonian companies regarding the development of drone and counter-drone capabilities. The Polish government announced the news on March 27, but has provided no further details as yet of the counter-drone arrangements.
“Estonia is a leader in new technologies, the IT industry, implementation, and experience in this area, so we want to capitalise on this,” said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence W. Kosiniak-Kamysz. “We have our own agenda, our own proposals. We are building a fourth layer of air defense. We also want to share our experience. We discussed joint exercises that will take place this year.”
The topics discussed by the Polish and Estonian defence ministers included regional security, particularly in the context of Russia’s actions and the war in Ukraine, cooperation within NATO and the Alliance’s eastern flank, hybrid threats and military cooperation, including joint exercises and training as well as the development of interoperability between the Polish and Estonian armed forces. The ministers also discussed cybersecurity, critical infrastructure protection, military modernisation and new technologies.
Kosiniak-Kamysz said Poland received an invitation to exercises in Estonia, which has been accepted, and added that the countries were looking at signing a security cooperation agreement soon. “The last one was signed a dozen or so years ago. Since then, everything has changed in Europe. We need a new agreement. We assigned our colleagues two months.”
Earlier in March, Poland’s Ministry of Defence announced the launch of the Center for Autonomous Systems (OSA). The centre is tasked with testing all research already underway in institutions, all discoveries made by small companies, scientists and enthusiasts as quickly as possible, submitting them to the military for testing, and implementing them into mass production.
Drones, drones, and more drones – this is a clear signal to all of us today that these capabilities must be intensively developed,” said Poland’s Deputy Minister of National Defence Cezary Tomczyk at OSA’s launch on March 19. “In 2023, the Ministry of National Defence allocated approximately PLN 100 million for unmanned systems. In 2024, the first year of our government, this amounted to PLN 300 million. In 2025 – PLN 700 million. And in 2026, this is the ‘drone highway’. We assume that we will allocate approximately PLN 25 billion for drones, unmanned systems, autonomous systems and counter-drone systems, in terms of contracts signed this year.”
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Image by Wojciech Król, Ministry of Defence – Poland
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