Polish territorial army will ‘counter threat from Russia’

● Fear of Putin’s ‘hybrid warfare’ in eastern Ukraine and Crimea

The Polish government has drafted legislation for the establishment of territorial army designed to counter the threat posed by “hybrid warfare” used by Russia in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

The establishment of the new 35,000-strong force comes as the latest Polish measure aimed at bolstering its defences against what it regards as the dangers posed by Russia under Vladimir Putin.

Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian Crimea and its use of force in eastern Ukraine have caused alarm in Poland and helped spur a huge defence spending programme that will make the central European country one of only five Nato members to hit the alliance’s unofficial target of 2 per-cent of GDP spent on defence.

The new territorial force, which, if all goes to plan, should be operational by 2019, will consist primarily of infantry units acting as regional defence forces. Along with conducting combat operations, the force will also be tasked with countering hybrid warfare: the loose combination of conventional, irregular and cyber-warfare used by Russia in recent years.

“The enemy tries to exploit internal conflicts within country, trying to make people fight with each other and so creating conditions favourable for the introduction of its forces,” Colonel Wieslaw Kukula, the officer overseeing the creation of the force, told TVN 24, a Polish news network.

Antoni Macierewicz, the Polish defence minister and a driving force behind the creation of the territorial army, said one way it would be able to “paralyse” its opponents in hybrid warfare was by countering the threat posed by Russian special forces. In an interview for a Polish military magazine he also said the new force would also come equipped with anti-tank weapons, short-range anti-aircraft missilesandcyber-warfare capabilities.

But the plan for the territorial force has already come under fire from critics.

Civic Platform, Poland’s main opposition party, has accused the government of wasting financial resources, arguing the money would be better spent enhancing the capabilities of Poland’s regular army.

The broad role of the territorial force has also raised some eye-brows. It could also be called upon to counter “non-military threats” such as attempts to de-stabilise internal security.