Poland will unveil its first US Patriot-type missiles battery at a military base in the northern town of Morag on May 26, a Polish defence ministry spokesman said Tuesday. "Ceremonies associated with the first rotation of the Patriot missile battery will be held Wednesday, May 26, in Morag", spokesman Janusz Sejmej said in a statement.
Asked by AFP, the defence ministry's press service declined Tuesday to provide further details. The Polish military base at Morag, in the Mazurian Lakes region, is some 250 kilometres (150 miles) north of Warsaw and just 60 kilometres (40 miles) from the border with Russia's Kaliningrad territory. In February, Poland ratified the so-called SOFA deal on the stationing on its soil of US troops who will crew the surface-to-air Patriot battery. They are also due to train Polish soldiers to use the system.
Poland has repeatedly insisted that the base close to Russian Kaliningrad was not chosen for political or strategic reasons, but simply because it already had good infrastructure. In September 2009 US President Barack Obama scrapped a plan agreed a year earlier by his predecessor George W. Bush to install a controversial anti-missile shield system in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Under that now-shelved deal, the United States also pledged to help upgrade Poland's national air defences with Patriot missiles and has stuck to that part of the agreement. The anti-missile shield plan had enraged Russia, which dubbed it a menace to its security on its very doorstep, although Washington insisted it was meant to ward off a potential long-range missile threat from Iran.