Non-Subscriber Extract
Poland and Russia re-establish military ties
By Grzegorz Holdanowicz
08 September 2009
Poland's Chief of General Staff, General Franciszek Gagor, met his Russian counterpart, General Nikolai Makarov, on 1 September: the first such bilateral contact since 1998.
The meeting, which was also attended by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, came on the 70th anniversary of the German invasion of Poland, which sparked the Second World War. The Soviet Red Army's subsequent invasion of Poland, in accordance with a secret pact made with Nazi Germany, effectively scuppered any chance of Poland defending its territory.
Declaring that there are "no actual barriers" to re-establishing military co-operation, the generals said that the first cross-border contacts would be between units in northern Poland and in Russia's Kaliningrad enclave.