Germany is to send troops to dig trenches and build anti-tank barriers on Poland’s borders with Belarus and Russia, Friedrich Merz has announced, as Moscow ramps up pressure on NATO airspace.
The German chancellor said Europe could not rely on US support to counter Russia, as Moscow continues to breach NATO countries’ airspace with drones, aircraft, and balloons.
From next April, soldiers will focus on defensive “pioneering activities” such as establishing positions, constructing trench systems, laying barbed wire, and erecting tank barriers as part of supporting Poland’s Eastern Shield, Germany’s defence ministry told Bild.
Heightened tensions along NATO’s eastern flank
In October, 19 Russian drones were shot down over Poland, adding to fears of an attack on the NATO member country, which shares a border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. Mark Rutte, the NATO secretary-general, warned on Thursday that the West faces conflict with Russia on a scale not seen since the days of “our grandparents and great-grandparents.”
Germany’s defence ministry said “a mid-double-digit number of soldiers from the army and the support sector” will participate in Operation East Shield in the border region with Kaliningrad and Belarus. Operation Eastern Shield is Poland’s £2bn national defence initiative, launched in May last year to protect the country’s eastern borders.
Escalating German military presence
In autumn 2024, 200 German troops were sent to Rzeszow on Poland’s borders with Ukraine to man anti-aircraft Patriot missile systems, handing over their positions to Dutch troops earlier this week. Poland has been the site of numerous Russian breaches of NATO airspace, with a missile killing two civilians in a border town near Ukraine in 2022. Hybrid warfare attacks have also included sabotage on the railway line.
Earlier this month, around 150 German troops and four Eurofighter jets were deployed to the Polish town of Malbork, 50 miles from Kaliningrad, as part of NATO’s Air Policing Mission North, with a fifth jet expected to arrive in the coming weeks.
Nils Schmid, Germany’s defence secretary, said on a visit to Romania last week: “Putin’s aggressive behaviour shows us that we cannot afford to let up for a second in strengthening our defence readiness. We are protecting the eastern flank from the far north to the Black Sea.”
Europe prepares without US backing
On Saturday, Merz said Europe had to prepare for the growing threat from Russia without US support. “The decades of the Pax Americana are largely over for us in Europe and Germany. It no longer exists as we knew it,” he said. “The Americans are now very, very aggressively pursuing their own interests. And that can only mean one thing: that we, too, must now pursue our own interests.”
Last week, Donald Trump published his new National Security Strategy, taking aim at Europe and its leaders and threatening the decades-old alliance. Germany’s domestic intelligence service warned that the US could get even more involved in influencing European election campaigns in the future.
Growing ties between Trump and German far-right
Trump’s NSS openly praised the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as “patriots,” despite them being branded as extremists by German authorities. AfD leaders were in Washington last week to meet with Republican officials, in a sign of their ties growing ever closer.
Upon taking office, Merz reformed the country’s strict budget restrictions to allow unlimited borrowing for defence, with plans to spend more than €650bn in the next five years. The move will allow Germany to hit the increased NATO spending targets of 3.5 per cent of GDP.
