World
Poland's $4.2 Billion Counter-Drone Contract Delivers Late 2026
Poland's Belarus frontier has had sensors running since 2025 and a wall since 2022. The $4.2 billion weapons system contracted to answer what those sensors see delivers its first batteries in late 2026, and the interceptor drone inside each platoon has a name its contractor roster did not previously include.
Poland's Białystok monitoring center went live in 2025, pulling sensor data from seven newly commissioned communications towers along the 418-kilometer Belarus frontier. The Podlaski Border Guard Regional Unit runs it; the thermal cameras meant to feed it are still being installed.
Warsaw finished a 5.5-meter steel wall in June 2022 at a cost of PLN 1.6 billion ($407 million). Four smuggling tunnels appeared beneath it by December 2025; the last ran 50 meters into Belarusian territory and moved at least 180 migrants in one interception. In April 2026, Deputy Interior Minister Tomasz Szymański confirmed repeated surface breaches and announced a secondary four-meter fence at five hotspots, PLN 180 million budgeted for summer 2026.
The Weapons Contract
On January 30, 2026, Warsaw signed a PLN 15 billion ($4.2 billion) contract for 18 SAN counter-drone batteries, attended by Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz. Each battery comprises three fire platoons: 30mm cannons, 35mm guns, 70mm APKWS II guided rockets, and MEROPS AS-3 interceptor drones made by Perennial Autonomy, across 703 vehicles. First deliveries are scheduled for late 2026; full build-out lands in January 2028.
The Contractor Roster
The SAN consortium pairs Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace with state-owned Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa; Gdynia-based Advanced Protection Systems runs command and control. Kongsberg's contract share is NOK 16 billion ($1.66 billion), roughly 40 percent; the program draws on the EU's SAFE defense loan scheme, which authorized €44 billion to European militaries in 2025. The domestic 60 percent, a Warsaw industrial-policy requirement, flows to PIT-RADWAR for radars, Jelcz and Legwan for vehicles, Huta Stalowa Wola for guns, and Mesko for missiles.
WB Group covers reconnaissance drones under a September 2023 framework for more than 400 FlyEye systems, with a fourth executive agreement signed October 2025. Perennial Autonomy delivered four MEROPS systems to Poland's eastern anti-aircraft regiments in November 2025; each SAN fire platoon will carry the same platform.
The gap between sensing and shooting exposes what East Shield's deterrence framing obscures: Poland built the watching system years before it contracted a response. The Podlaski Border Guard's Białystok center ingests data from a frontier that will lack a fully integrated counter-drone capability until late 2026 at the earliest.
When SAN batteries arrive, the Land Forces take command. Sixteen of 18 batteries are assigned to four existing anti-aircraft regiments; the 18th Zamość Anti-Aircraft Regiment of the 18th Mechanized Division covers the eastern flank.
The test arrives at the end of 2026, when SAN's first three fire platoons must deliver. Kongsberg's clock started January 30; a slip past that window means the Podlaski Border Guard's sensors run without shooters into 2027.