Germany will deploy several dozen Bundeswehr soldiers to Poland’s eastern border to support the construction of fortifications along the borders with Russia and Belarus. The information was announced on Friday following talks between representatives of the two governments.
The agreement was disclosed by Polish Deputy Minister of National Defence Paweł Zalewski after a meeting with German Parliamentary State Secretary Nils Schmid, according to the BILD portal. The German contingent, numbering around 50 soldiers, is set to begin work in the second quarter of 2026, with the mission planned to continue until the end of 2027.
The Bundeswehr will carry out exclusively non-combat engineering tasks. As confirmed by a spokesperson for the German Ministry of Defence, the soldiers will be involved in building defensive positions, digging trenches, installing barbed-wire barriers, and erecting anti-tank obstacles in areas bordering the Kaliningrad Oblast and Belarus.
The program includes, among other elements, firing trenches, anti-tank barriers, minefields, and advanced observation and monitoring systems. Construction began in November 2024 near the border with the Kaliningrad Oblast, where 3,500 concrete barriers have already been installed along the first section.
“Support from German soldiers is strictly limited to construction work,” the ministry spokesperson emphasised. For this reason, the mission does not require approval from the Bundestag, as the personnel will not be involved in combat operations or exposed to direct military risk.
This is another element of the expanding military cooperation between Poland and Germany. Since January 2025, German Patriot air defence systems have been protecting a logistics hub near Rzeszów, which is critical to delivering weapons and military equipment to Ukraine. In December 2024, Germany also deployed Eurofighter aircraft and around 150 soldiers to the Malbork air base as part of the NATO Eastern Sentry mission.
Source: https://managerplus.pl/bundeswehra-wesprze-budowe-umocnien-przy-granicy-z-rosja-i-bialorusia
