On Tuesday, March 28 in Bucharest, the head of the Ministry of Defense participated in Polish-Romanian intergovernmental consultations chaired by the prime ministers of Poland and Romania.

- Romanians have just decided to equip their air force with F-16s, and we are ready to share our experience. We've been using F-16s for almost 20 years already. However, I also talked about the fact that we have ordered F-35s. These aircraft will already be available next year. The Korean FA-50s, which are basically the same as the F-16s - as our pilots say in about 80%. This creates conditions for us to, for instance, conduct joint training. As for ground troops, Poles and Romanians are also equipping ground troops with very similar equipment. We have ordered HIMARS. The Romanians have done so as well, which is why we are discussing here the joint use of these weapons precisely through cooperation between our armed forces. The case is quite similar regarding the Patriots. Romanians have also decided to buy Abrams. And we will have Abrams on the Polish Army's equipment already this year

- mentioned Deputy Prime Minister during his stay in Bucharest.

The situation in Ukraine, bilateral military cooperation, modernization priorities of the armed forces of both our countries, as well as military exercises on NATO's eastern flank were discussed during the meeting between the defense ministers of Poland and Romania. Ministers Mariusz Blaszczak and Angel TÎLVÃR also discussed the agenda for the April B9 meeting in the format of defense ministers, scheduled to take place in Warsaw.

- This was the fourth meeting between the Polish and Romanian governments. So we already have a long history of intergovernmental consultations. Undoubtedly, the basic issue that was discussed both among the Polish and Romanian government delegations and during my conversation with my Romanian counterpart was security. Namely, building the resilience of the Allied - that is NATO - troops on the one hand, but on the other side also strengthening in numbers and modernizing our troops, as well as cooperation between our armed forces

- said the head of the Ministry of Defense.

- First of all, we are dedicated to modernizing the equipment of our troops as quickly as possible. At the same time, we have also discussed joint purchases of ammunition both in the European Union program and our governmental, national, programs. The idea is to increase the production of ammunition to support the Ukrainians fighting the Russian invasion on the one hand and to fill our stockpiles on the other. Our armed forces are interoperable, cooperate with each other and are prepared to deter the aggressor

- noted the head of the Polish Defense Ministry.

The government delegations, led by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă, mainly discussed regional cooperation, security issues and transatlantic relations.

Deputy Prime Minister Mariusz Blaszczak also stressed the importance of the so-called Three Seas Initiative, which he said is very valuable for security.

- Certainly, for security in the form of building a deterrence system, that is, strengthening the military that operates on our territory the initiative is extremely important. After all, we know that for years Russia has been trying to make Europe dependent on the supply of energy resources. With this background, we also had a discussion on cooperation in the B9 format. We agreed that the next meeting in this format will take place in Warsaw at the end of April. And there we will talk about the NATO summit in Vilnius, so as to coordinate our positions, to draw the attention of the Allies to the challenges we face. In the case of Poland, obviously, it's the issue of Belarus and everything that is happening in Belarus, as well as Russian aggression and attempts to rebuild the Russian empire. Romanians have the same kind of approach. Needless to say, they also believe that everything Putin is doing is a security threat, thus we are supporting Ukraine in solidarity and we are trying, in solidarity, to strengthen our armed forces

- noted Deputy Prime Minister Mariusz Blaszczak.

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Poland and Romania, among others, participate in the Bucharest Nine format initiated in 2014. Meetings are held at various levels (presidents, foreign and defense ministers). The B9's activity focuses on issues related to threats to NATO's eastern flank, ways of mitigating them and seeking opportunities for cooperation among countries in the region in this regard.

Poland supports NATO units operating in Romania, whose task is to strengthen the security of NATO's eastern and southern flanks as well as the entire North Atlantic Alliance. All activities of both the Alliance and its individual members are defensive and deterrent in nature. They are the result of NATO's adaptation to current security challenges.