Belgium to buy Piorun air-defence systems from Poland and train Polish F-35 pilots

Belgium will purchase hundreds of Piorun man-portable air-defence systems from their Polish manufacturer, Mesko. It becomes the latest country to buy Pioruns after they proved a success in Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s invasion. The United States and Norway are previous customers.

A letter of intent to purchase the Piorun systems, as well as to deepen Polish-Belgian military cooperation more broadly, was signed on Tuesday by the two countries’ defence ministers, Theo Francken of Belgium and Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz of Poland.

Francken announced that the deal would see “hundreds of Pioruns” arriving this year for use by Belgium’s special forces and paratroopers. He said the contract would be worth around €140 million (593 million zloty) in total. Poland later confirmed that Belgium would buy between 200 and 300 Piorun systems.

Additionally, Belgium will “borrow” missiles for its F-35 fighter jets, said Francken. “Due to the very long delivery times at the manufacturer”, this will allow Belgium to “be fully operational faster”, he wrote. Meanwhile, Belgium will train Polish operators in the use of F-35s and MQ-9 Reaper drones.

“Poland has one of the strongest armies in NATO. We can learn a lot from them,” wrote Francken, adding in English: “Let’s make our defense great again.”

Poland has ramped up defence spending in recent years to the highest level in NATO. It has the alliance’s third largest army, and largest in Europe.

The Piorun (whose name means “lightning” in Polish) went into service in 2019 as a modernisation of the Grom (meaning “thunder”) man-portable air-defence system. It is designed to shoot down low-flying aircraft such as planes, helicopters and drones.

In 2022, Pioruns were among the large quantities of military equipment Poland provided to Ukraine to help its eastern neighbour defend itself from Russia’s full-scale invasion. The systems were successfully used to take down a variety of Russian aircraft.

In that same year, Mesko announced that the US government had ordered “several hundred” Piorun systems while Norway also put in a similar order.

“Poland buys a lot of equipment…but we also want to produce and…sell our best equipment, and Pioruns are the best,” said Kosiniak-Kamysz at Monday’s signing ceremony, which took place at Mesko’s plant in the town of Skarżysko-Kamienna.

“Pioruns have proven themselves in Ukraine with their effectiveness, 100% efficiency,” added the Polish defence minister. “That is why I am very happy that today Belgium will be…enriched with the best equipment manufactured in Poland and, thanks to this, our entire alliance will also be safer.”

Kosiniak-Kamysz also expressed satisfaction that Polish operators will be able to “make use of the skills that Belgian pilots have already acquired in operating the F-35, because we are acquiring the same versions“.

Main image credit: MON (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)