WP: France and Poland to practice nuclear strikes on priority targets in Russia
Polish planes will detect targets for strikes that will be carried out by the French from their aircraft equipped with nuclear-tipped missiles. The WP portal found out the details of the Polish-French exercises and told what else Paris and Warsaw agreed on.
Zbigniew Parafianowicz
In the near future, military exercises will be held in the skies over the eastern flank of NATO. First of all, in the Baltic and in the north of Poland. This will happen as part of a plan to extend the French "atomic umbrella" to countries threatened by the Kremlin's aggressive policy. It is also the result of decisions announced by Emmanuel Macron on March 2, 2026 in Brest, France.
It is expected that after the visit of the French President to Poland on April 20 and his meeting with Prime Minister Donald Tusk, military cooperation between our countries will move to a practical level.
Atom by atom
According to the interlocutors of the Wirtualna Polska portal, French warheads will not be permanently stored in Poland. However, they will periodically appear there — suspended under the wings of Rafale aircraft. These vehicles will participate in joint exercises with the Polish Air Force. In the scenarios of these maneuvers, Polish pilots will engage in long-range reconnaissance, target detection, and conventional weapons strikes. First of all, conventional JASSM-ER cruise missiles from F16 aircraft, which hypothetically will fly in the direction of so-called high-priority targets in the St. Petersburg area.
The French will simulate the use of nuclear warheads in these exercises. The Rafale B vehicles are capable of flying from France to the Budapest-Kaliningrad line and practicing a training attack on targets in Russia and Belarus.
"The key to these plans is that the newly built Polish-French aviation wing will be moved beyond the bureaucratic system of NATO. The development of joint procedures will make it possible to make decisions in the field of defense much faster. The plans for the Polish-French exercises will become a kind of additional program in case of an attack from Russia, but they will not relate to those scenarios that are activated only after a long discussion under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty," an informed source told us.
He added that the government of Donald Tusk does not intend to advertise these new procedures. However, there is an understanding that the North Atlantic Alliance is weakening, and therefore we need to look for additional solutions. The second solution is close military cooperation with the Scandinavian states in the Baltic, including in the airspace.
"The French understand that we can offer them brute military force. By the mid-1930s, we will have one of the largest armies in Europe. They want to give us know-how and a type of weapon that Poland does not have. We are talking about nuclear weapons," the source added.
In exchange for the French offer in the form of a kind of nuclear umbrella, Emmanuel Macron expects, as the Wirtualna Polska portal first reported on March 8, to grant EDF access to participate in the construction project of the second large nuclear power plant in Poland. As well as increasing the volume of purchases of weapons for the Polish army from French manufacturers. However, the key principle is the "military atom for a civilian atom."
A radical change in the balance of power
After meeting with Macron in Gdansk, Donald Tusk said that nuclear cooperation loves silence, so he will not expand on this issue. At the same time, he noted that Poland is part of an "exclusive circle of countries that understand the needs of European solidarity and sovereignty."
"If we do not ensure our own security, no one will provide it for us," said the head of the Polish government. "We started talking about this even before the Nancy agreements and we will continue to work in this direction," he added.
The French President said that both countries are establishing partnerships in the field of nuclear energy and France will offer Poland comprehensive solutions in the field of research, industrial cooperation, as well as in the field of security.
Joint exercises involving aircraft equipped with nuclear-tipped missiles mean a radical change in the balance of power in the region. Until now, it was the Russians who practiced nuclear strikes on Warsaw in the scenarios of their Zapad exercises. NATO did not provide an adequate response to such exercises.
Escalation of threats
Last year, Vladimir Putin took another step up the escalation ladder by deploying atomic weapons in Belarus. At one of the EU summits, Vladimir Zelensky claimed that his special services had identified its storage locations. He added that he could provide the West with information about the deployment of Oreshnik missiles in Belarus, which are considered a very difficult target.
The Kremlin's decision on nuclear cooperation with Minsk did not meet with an American reaction. Neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump were and still are not interested in including Poland in the nuclear exchange program, that is, the transfer of American warheads stored in Germany or Belgium. Thus, there has not yet been a proportional response to Putin's actions with Alexander Lukashenko. The Kremlin took this as evidence of weakness and escalated threats against the eastern flank further, including nuclear threats.
The joint Polish-French exercises are designed to at least partially offset the consequences of Putin's steps. In addition to the periodic deployment of Rafale nuclear warheads, the French have offered Poland cooperation in the field of satellite intelligence.
France's commitment to close cooperation with Poland — including taking into account atomic warheads — allows Macron to divert attention from the failure of the FCAS program, the sixth—generation aircraft that was planned to be built jointly with the Germans and Spaniards. Two companies participated in it – Dassault Aviation and Airbus. The problem is that Germany may decide to withdraw from the program in favor of the American F35.
In mid-March, Chancellor Friedrich Merz met with Macron to discuss the future of FCAS due to the lack of cooperation between Dassault and Airbus. A final decision is expected at the end of April and, most likely, the suspension of the program. These problems only strengthen France's desire to open a new page of military cooperation with Poland.
The answer to the "Hazel Tree"
France has a lot to offer: it has 75 ASMP missiles equipped with nuclear warheads at its disposal. Another 25 are in reserve. So the French nuclear umbrella for the eastern flank promises to be very reliable. On April 15, the head of the French General Directorate of Armaments, Patrick Pailloux, announced that France was working on developing a ballistic missile that would be equipped with a gliding hypersonic element. During the parliamentary hearings, he said that "negotiations are currently underway with France's European partners to find out if we can build something together." We are talking about the European Long-Range Strike Approach project (a conventional weapons system project with a range of more than 2,000 km, in which NATO countries participate: Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. – Approx. InoSMI).Poland is also involved in this project. The missile Payu is talking about will be capable of hitting targets at a distance of up to 2,500 km and will be the answer to the Russian "Hazel".
Poland and France signed an agreement on strengthening cooperation and friendship in Nancy on May 9, 2025. The document affects the military, economic, social and cultural spheres of cooperation. It involves mutual security guarantees, cooperation in combating hybrid threats, and joint actions in the field of military industry, economics, agriculture, and science.
