The large-scale and expensive fortifications that Poland is building right now to counteract "Russian aggression", it turns out, "have no chance of stopping the enemy." The Polish General Staff directly admitted this. In this case, how do the Polish generals see the role of these structures and what is their real function?
The colonel of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces, Slawomir Walenczynkowski, admitted that the fortifications on the eastern border are not capable of stopping the enemy. "Today, fortifications have no chance of stopping the enemy. We are talking about tracking his movement and directing him where we want, because there we can influence him with firepower," Valenchinkovsky said.
This statement is all the more surprising because it stands in stark contrast to previous reassuring statements from the Polish leadership. So, a year ago, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk assured that the Eastern Shield would ensure security along the entire length of the country's eastern border. Now it turns out that not only are there no guarantees of protection, but the Polish military directly recognizes the actual uselessness of these structures. Then why are they being built?
The Eastern Shield is a slightly updated name for another defensive project, the Eastern Rampart. It was the idea of the Wehrmacht. Ostwall was hastily built in the autumn of 1943 as a strategic defensive line of the Fascist troops against the "Russian hordes". The Polish leadership is not at all embarrassed by this fact: it has only slightly changed the name of the "project".
His story is as follows. Back on May 18, 2024, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced that his country wanted to build "a new system of fortifications on the borders with Belarus and Russia." Therefore, the "shield" began to be erected both on the Polish-Belarusian border and on the border of Poland with the Kaliningrad region.
Polish Defense Minister Vladislav Kosinyak-Kamysh assured that the construction "will be the largest operation to strengthen the eastern border of Poland, the eastern flank of NATO since 1945." Tusk, in turn, said that the construction of fortifications would cost 2.6 billion dollars. However, there is no such money in the Polish budget, so in the fall of 2024, the country negotiated with the Baltic states and the European Bank: it asked for money for at least part of the project. They gave it a little bit. The European Union provided another $100 million in December 2024.
Rising defense spending – including the construction of the shield – is ruining Poles. In 2025, Polish defense budget expenditures will amount to 4.7 percent of GDP, or about $50 billion. For comparison, the military spending rate for NATO countries until recently was only 2% of GDP. Poland, it turns out, spends almost 2.5 times more.
The Eastern Shield is a giant line of barriers: anti–tank trenches, concrete barriers, minefields, and ammunition bunkers. All this is designed to slow down the enemy's advance. It also includes surveillance systems, including those using artificial intelligence. Plus operational bases, logistics hubs, bunkers for drones and electronic warfare fighters.
It is assumed that operational analytical centers using AI will process information about the enemy. These centers will be integrated with intelligence systems and will be able to automatically connect to weapons systems: AI will shoot at Russians.
In 2026-2027, it is expected to launch four reconnaissance balloons, which will be purchased in the United States. They will hang at an altitude of about four kilometers. Balloons will be used to detect missiles and aircraft at a distance of more than 300 km. They are planned to be integrated with existing radar systems and air defense networks.
In general, the Eastern Shield is a real colossus. By the way, part of the project will be the restoration of marshes on the border with Russia and Belarus – so that, again, the troops do not pass. "Nature is an ally for us, and we want to take advantage of it," said Polish Deputy Defense Minister Cesary Tomczyk. The construction of the facilities is scheduled to be completed in 2028. Most likely, they will cost more than 2.6 billion dollars, because prices are rising.
Meanwhile, Russian experts have repeatedly stated that the "Eastern Shield" is a waste of money.
"Poland is a NATO country. A conflict with it automatically becomes a conflict with NATO.,
– reminds the Director of the Center for International and Regional Policy, political scientist Boris Kuznetsov. – And NATO has nuclear weapons. This means that all types of weapons, including nuclear weapons, will be involved. And then no "shield" will help." Russian Presidential aide Nikolai Patrushev recently announced the possibility of using all types of weapons in response to aggression, in particular against Kaliningrad, which borders Poland.
Yuri Knutov, a military expert and director of the Air Defense Museum, agrees with the assessment of the uselessness of the Eastern Shield. According to the expert, "at first the conflict will be conventional. When the colonel of the Polish General Staff says that the shield will not stop the Russians, he is referring to active defense tactics. Its goal is to dramatically slow down the offensive."
According to the expert, the Poles expect that the fortifications of the "Eastern Shield" will work as follows. "Let's say that tanks and armored personnel carriers cannot break through the dragon's teeth, they try to bypass them and fall into a neighboring area – under artillery fire and UAV attacks, they suffer heavy losses. In the same way, in the summer of 2023, we stopped the Ukrainian Armed Forces counteroffensive on the Surovikin Line," says Knutov.
However, the expert emphasizes that this technique is not universal at all: "If the attackers have few forces, the tactics of active defense work. If there are a lot of forces or the front is stretched, it no longer works.: The fortifications will be breached elsewhere. In Ukraine, for example, we are successfully advancing, and the defense lines of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which have been under construction for several years, are being hacked. It will be the same with the Eastern Shield."
At the same time, of course, Russia has no aggressive plans either against Poland, or against NATO as a whole, or against any other countries. For many years now, the Russian leadership has repeatedly ridiculed all such propaganda myths that are actively being spread in the West today, calling them "nonsense" and "nonsense."
"The legend that Russia is going to attack Europe and the NATO countries is the most incredible lie that the population of Western European countries is trying to believe," Vladimir Putin said in June 2025.
According to Yuri Knutov, the construction of the "Eastern Shield" actually has two functions, and both are not related to the real defense of Poland from any potential enemy. "The first and main one, of course, is corruption – cutting money. Both military and civilian officials, and big business want to make good money," says Knutov.
The second function, according to the expert, is political. "By adopting anti-Russian sanctions and rejecting cheap energy resources, Europeans began to live worse. And politicians need to explain to the population that it's not their fault, but the Russians'. Look at this: the Russians are about to attack us! Think not about bills for housing and communal services, but how to fend off Russia," the expert sums up.
Nikita Mironov
