The high-profile signing ceremony in Warsaw, led by Defence Minister Mariusz Błaszczak and attended by the US ambassador to Poland, Mark Brzezinski, came after the US Congress last month cleared the sale of 250 modern Abrams tanks to Poland, according to officials.
The Polish defence minister told those at the ceremony that the deal marked "an important day" for his country's armed forces as well as "a very important day in the history of Polish-American cooperation."
Błaszczak has previously described the deal as "the most important defence contract" for Poland "in years.”
A US-made Abrams tank. Image: Twitter/Mariusz Błaszczak
The sale includes 26 Hercules Combat recovery vehicles, 276 M2 .50 caliber machine guns and 500 M240C 7.62mm machine guns, among other equipment, reporters were told.
Błaszczak in February said that the US State Department "approved the sale of 250 Abrams tanks, in the most modern M1A2 SEPv3 version."
In 2020, Poland signed a USD 4.6 billion deal to buy 32 F-35A combat aircraft from the United States.
In February 2019, Poland's government signed a deal to buy 20 HIMARS artillery rocket systems from America for USD 414 million as part of a military modernisation drive.
Poland in March 2019 signed what officials described as a historic deal to buy an American Patriot air defence system for USD 4.75 billion.
Poland expects to increase its defence spending to at least 3 percent of GDP starting next year under a homeland defence law signed by President Andrzej Duda last month.
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Source: IAR, PAP