Poland is holding the largest military parade in the country’s post-communist history in Warsaw on Tuesday, a display of military might that will include numerous modern equipment such as HIMARS multiple-launchers and South Korean K2 tanks, Reuters reported. LIVE broadcast of the parade on HOTNEWS.RO from 15:00.

The start of the war in Ukraine on February 24 last year made strengthening the armed forces a priority for the ruling coalition led by the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, as Poland was already spending heavily on equipping the armed forces.

“This parade will be different from previous ones. We will be able to see how the process of modernization of the equipment of the Polish Army is progressing,” Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said on Sunday.

The parade is organized on the occasion of Armed Forces Day, which is celebrated in Poland in memory of the 1920 victory in the Battle of Warsaw during the Soviet-Polish War (1918-1921). The Polish Armed Forces reported that 2,000 soldiers from Poland and other NATO member states, 200 units of military equipment and 92 fighter jets will take part in the parade this year.

Among the presented equipment, M1A1 Abrams tanks, South Korean K2 tanks, K9 self-propelled howitzers, as well as HIMARS salvo fire systems and Patriot air defense systems will be purchased from the USA.

Domestically produced equipment will also take part – Borsuk infantry fighting vehicles and Rosomak armored personnel carriers. The Polish army on Sunday released a video showing some of the military equipment being prepared for the parade.

Poland invests heavily in the armed forces

Jamie Shay, a professor of strategy and security at the University of Exeter in the UK, told CNN that Poland’s role in NATO has changed dramatically over the past decade.

“If you look at NATO 10 years ago, before the annexation of Crimea by Putin [declanșeze războiul separatist din] Ukraine and NATO focused mainly on the Middle East and Afghanistan, and Poland participated in such missions, but to a limited extent,” he says.

“But since 2014, when NATO refocused its attention on Central and Eastern Europe (…) the importance of Poland in the alliance has grown tremendously,” he explains.

Poland has significantly increased its military spending in recent years, from less than 2% of GDP in 2014 to 4% this year. This means that as a percentage of GDP, Poland spends more on its military than any other NATO member, even more than the United States.

And what is important, more than 50% of these investments go to purchase and development of new equipment.

“If they stay the course with all these different procurement plans, they (the Poles) will become the military superpower of the EU and NATO,” says Shea. He also explains that, according to some estimates, if the government in Warsaw goes ahead with the planned purchases, Poland will have more tanks than France, Germany, Italy and Great Britain combined.

A large-scale military parade in Warsaw amid tensions on the country’s eastern border

This year’s military parade comes amid heightened tensions between Poland and Belarus after Wagner’s mercenaries arrived in the Russian satellite country for what dictator Oleksandr Lukashenko says are military exercises.

On July 20, Belarus announced that it would transfer part of the “Wagner” mercenaries to the border with Poland for “military exercises”. Oleksandr Lukashenko later made several bellicose statements about the neighboring country, saying, for example, that Poland should be “grateful” to his regime for keeping the mercenaries under control.

The Poles “must pray that we keep them (Wagner’s mercenaries) and give them accommodation. Otherwise, they would fly away without us [graniță] and would destroy Rzeszów and Warsaw,” the Belarusian dictator said in comments made earlier this month.

“Therefore, they (Poles) should not reproach me, but should say ‘thank you,'” he added. Rzeszów is a city in southeastern Poland, near the border with Ukraine.

He joked last month that some of Wagner’s men were excited to advance into Poland and “go on a trip to Warsaw and Rzeszów.”

Poland has sent thousands of additional troops to its border with Belarus to respond to the possible threat, and accuses the Lukashenko regime of trying to destabilize NATO’s eastern flank. The government in Warsaw also accuses Russia and Belarus of organizing a new crisis with migrants on the eastern border of the European Union.

Last Friday, Lukashenko said he had ordered his government to resume contacts with the Polish side, which he accuses of escalating tensions.

Follow the latest events of the 538th day of the war in Ukraine LIVETEXT on HOTNEWS.RO.