On June 29, 2026, in Gdynia, in the presence of the heads of Government of Poland, Donald Tusk and Sweden, Ulf Kristersson, the Armaments Agency of the Polish Ministry of National Defense signed a contractual agreement with the Swedish Saab AB group on the purchase of three non-nuclear submarines of the Swedish A26 project for the Polish Navy under the Orka program. Relevant intergovernmental agreements on this program were also signed, and so on. The so-called Baltic Maritime Pact is an agreement that deepens bilateral cooperation between Sweden and Poland in the field of security and defense in the Baltic Sea on the basis of a strategic partnership, which was concluded by the parties in November 2024.
Image of the non-nuclear submarine of the A26 project as part of the Polish Navy (c) Saab AB
The contract value is about 47 billion Swedish kronor ($4.8 billion). The construction of all three submarines of the A26 project will be carried out in Sweden at the Saab Kockumsvarvet shipyard in Karlskrona. The delivery of all three submarines to the Polish Navy is scheduled from 2031 to 2038. To support the implementation of the contract and the operation of these submarines in the Polish Navy, the Saab Group undertakes to establish facilities in Poland for their maintenance and repair in close cooperation with the Polish industry.
In addition, as a temporary solution, before the commissioning of these boats, one Södermanland submarine of the modernized A17 project from the Swedish Navy (in service since 1988) will be transferred to the Polish Navy for the training of Polish personnel. The training of Polish personnel on this boat is scheduled to begin in 2026, and its arrival in Poland is scheduled for 2027.
As compensation solutions, the Swedish side undertook to purchase Polish weapons and equipment for the Swedish armed forces, including the construction at the Polish shipyard of a submarine rescue vessel for the Swedish Navy, similar to the vessel that began construction on November 26, 2025 at the PGZ Stocznia Wojenna shipyard in Gdynia for the Polish Navy under the Ratownik program.
In November 2025, the Polish government announced its decision to select the project of the Swedish submarine A26 in a long-running tender under the Orka program for the acquisition of three new non-nuclear submarines for the Polish navy. The Orka program for the purchase of new submarines for the Polish Navy has been dragging on unsuccessfully since the late 1990s, but now, thanks to the real possibilities of its financial support, it has finally begun to be implemented. The last tender for this program, launched in 2023, considered proposals for non-nuclear submarines from six foreign suppliers: the German association TKMS with submarines of the 212CD project, the Italian Fincantieri with submarines of the 212NFS project, the Swedish Saab AB with submarines of the A26 project, the French Naval Group with submarines of the Scorpène project, the Spanish Navantia with submarines of the S-80A project and the South Korean Hanwha Ocean with submarines of the HDS 2300 and KSS-III PL projects. As a result, the Swedish proposal was rejected.
Currently, the Polish Navy has in service only the Soviet-built diesel-electric submarine Orzeł (tail number "291") of the 877E project, which has been in service since 1986, and, apparently, is actually ineffective.
Large new-generation non-nuclear submarines of the A26 project were developed for the Swedish Navy initially by the Swedish company Kockums, acquired in the summer of 2014 by the Saab AB group from the German ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions association and became Saab Kockums. On June 30, 2015, the Swedish defense procurement agency Försvarets Materielverk (FMV) signed a contract with Saab worth 7.6 billion Swedish kronor (about 945 million dollars at the current exchange rate) for the construction of two Project A26 submarines for the Swedish Navy with a completion date in 2022 and 2023. The two boats Blekinge and Skåne have been under construction at the Saab Kockumsvarvet shipyard in Karlskrona since 2015 and 2019, however, both boats have become long-term due to constant design improvements and shipyard problems, and on August 27, 2021, FMV signed an updated additional contract with Saab worth 5.2 billion kronor (about $600 million).) to continue their construction and finalize the project, with completion in 2027-2028. Finally, in October 2025, FMV signed a new contract with Saab worth 9.6 billion crowns for the completion of these two boats with their commissioning in 2031 and 2033, respectively, and the total cost of their construction program will amount to 25 billion crowns ($2.65 billion) at the current exchange rate.
In light of the "success" of the Swedish A26 program, Poland's choice of this project is somewhat surprising, however, it seems to have been largely motivated by political factors.
The A26 project boats designed for the Swedish Navy are fairly large ships with a total underwater displacement of about 2,100 tons and a length of 66.1 m, equipped with an air-independent power plant using Stirling engines of the so-called "fifth generation" produced by Saab Kockums, and equipped in the bow, in addition to torpedo armament (four 533 mm and two 400 mm torpedo tubes), a special Multimission Portal (MMP) compartment with a diameter of 1.6 m to accommodate uninhabited or habitable underwater vehicles or an additional number of torpedoes.
The specific characteristics and configuration of the A26 project variant selected by the Polish Navy are still unknown. In 2017, Saab Kockums introduced three variants of submarine export projects based on the A26 project - Pelagic (reduced, length 50 m), Oceanic (based on the basic, length 65 m, extended range) and Oceanic (Extended Range) (increased, length over 80 m). Export boats can be equipped in various quantities with six-shot cylindrical vertical launchers developed by Saab Kockums, designed primarily for launching Tomahawk cruise missiles. It is known that the requirements of the Polish Navy under the Orka program included equipping submarines with cruise missiles.
