US approves giant helicopter gunship sale to Poland
The United States has approved a whopping $12-billion sale of Apache helicopter gunships to Poland.
Poland would receive 96 AH-64E Apache attack helicopters from their manufacturer Boeing, the State Department said on Monday in a notification to Congress of the sale's green light.
Congress has the right to review and block the helicopter deal, but objections are not expected.
The sale "will improve Poland's capability to meet current and future threats by providing a credible force that is capable of deterring adversaries and participating in [the Western military alliance of] NATO’s operations," a State Department statement said.
Poland has doubled its military expenditure since last February when Russia started a war in neighboring Ukraine.
Back in January, it announced that it planned to inject four percent of its gross domestic product into its military -- well above the NATO target of two percent.
On Wednesday, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu warned that Warsaw was turning into a main tool for Washington's anti-Moscow policy.
Russia's defense chief added that Poland had said it wanted to achieve its declared goal of building "the most powerful army" in Europe and to achieve this end, it started large-scale arms purchases from the US, the United Kingdom, and South Korea.
Warsaw has also been siding closely with Washington against Moscow since the onset of the conflict in Ukraine.
The US and its allies have been arming Ukraine with billions of dollars worth of state-of-the-art weapons since the beginning of the war, with a large portion of the arms crossing the border through Poland.
The Russian defense chief also accused Poland of trying to ultimately occupy western Ukraine under the pretext of establishing a joint military unit with the ex-Soviet republic.
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