Mariusz Błaszczak watched as a Polish artillery brigade showcased its combat readiness and practised shooting from the South Korean K9 vehicles in the northern city of Toruń on Thursday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Poland’s defence minister was accompanied by his South Korean counterpart Lee Jong-Sup, with whom he held bilateral talks earlier in the day, according to officials.
Błaszczak, who is also Poland’s deputy prime minister, told reporters in Toruń: “We have just witnessed the first shooting practice on the K9 gun-howitzers in Poland. The practice was carried out by Polish K9 crews.”
He added: “It’s a symbol of our Polish-Korean cooperation. It’s also a symbol of how quickly we are proceeding with the matters facing us, with the challenges facing us, and the fundamental challenge is to strengthen our security, strengthen our defence capabilities.”
The defence minister said that “today’s training session is our joint success,” adding: “in a short space of time we have ensured that our cooperation is bringing concrete results.”
Błaszczak also told reporters: “The Polish army is now equipped with South Korean hardware. The K9 gun-howitzers are with a unit stationed in northeastern Poland. Today, the first batch of twelve K9 gun-howitzers have been supplied to a unit stationed in southeastern Poland, as part of the 18th Mechanised Division.”
As part of its drive to strengthen the armed forces amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Poland has recently also ordered K2 battle tanks, FA-50 light fighter jets and K239 Chunmoo rocket launchers from South Korea, the PAP news agency reported.
Thursday was day 365 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm)
Source: PAP, 300polityka.pl