Deputy Minister of National Defence Paweł Bejda’s official visit to Toulon in July 2025 marked a pivotal escalation in Poland’s multilateral negotiations for the acquisition of modern submarines under the Orka program. Far from being a mere procurement exercise, the process encapsulates the profound shifts in European defense posture, Poland’s strategic elevation within NATO’s eastern flank, and the contested landscape of naval-industrial competition across Europe and the Indo-Pacific. Bejda’s meetings with French defense officials, including Emmanuel Chiva, Director General of the Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA), and his inspection of Naval Group’s infrastructure in Toulon, form a critical episode in Warsaw’s attempt to rebalance its strategic dependencies, enhance technological sovereignty, and align submarine acquisition with a broader framework of joint missile development and transfer of advanced undersea warfare technology.
The Orka program’s procurement plan, initially formalized by the Polish Ministry of National Defence in 2015 and significantly revived after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has accelerated dramatically in 2024–2025. The urgency reflects both the acute military threats to the Baltic Sea region and Warsaw’s strategic ambition to transition from a land-centric power to a multidimensional military actor with credible undersea deterrence. By July 2025, five principal bidders had emerged: France’s Naval Group (Scorpène class), Germany’s Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems (Type 212CD), Sweden’s Saab Kockums (A26 Blekinge), Italy’s Fincantieri (Todaro-class variant), and South Korea’s Hanwha Ocean (KSS-III). Spain’s Navantia also presented technical proposals, though with lower strategic traction due to constraints in local industrial offsets and operational compatibility.
Each offer is underpinned by a complex matrix of industrial partnerships, political alliances, and operational doctrines. However, France’s proposition—anchored in the Naval Group’s ocean-proven Scorpène-class platform and augmented by potential integration into the European Long-Range Strike Capabilities (ELSA) program—has emerged as a strong contender. In June 2025, following confidential exchanges between the Polish and French defense ministries, Warsaw and Paris signed a letter of intent (LOI) for expanded bilateral cooperation not only in undersea capabilities but also in cruise missile technology. The letter envisaged Polish participation in the development, co-production, and eventual operational deployment of land-attack cruise missiles with a range exceeding 1,000 kilometers—systems that France has tested aboard its frigates and nuclear-powered submarines since the 2010s.
This vertical integration of naval platforms with long-range strike weapons resonates with Poland’s doctrinal pivot to deterrence-by-denial and its emphasis on multidomain readiness. The strategic relevance of long-range land-attack capability in Polish doctrine has increased significantly since the publication of the 2024 Strategic Concept of National Defence, which explicitly cites the need for submarine-launched and land-mobile cruise missile forces to hold adversary command, logistics, and anti-access nodes at risk. French MBDA’s Naval Cruise Missile (MdCN), with a tested range of approximately 1,000 km and operational service aboard France’s FREMM frigates and Barracuda-class submarines, is central to this dialogue. While Poland lacks nuclear-powered platforms, integration of such munitions on diesel-electric submarines (SSKs) represents a viable technological pathway, conditional on design adaptations and export control relaxations.
The industrial value proposition of Naval Group’s offer is further reinforced by its extensive record of international transfers and co-production, notably in Brazil (Prosub program), India (Kalvari-class under Project 75), and Malaysia. France has consistently demonstrated its willingness to grant local production rights, sovereign IP access, and modular technology transfers—factors critical for Warsaw’s domestic shipbuilding ecosystem and defense autonomy agenda. According to 2025 data from France’s Ministry of the Armed Forces, more than 35% of the unit cost in the Kalvari-class submarines was localized in Indian industry. Similarly, Brazil’s Itaguaí Construções Navais (ICN), a joint venture with Naval Group, now possesses the capacity to produce and maintain Brazil’s entire Scorpène-class fleet. Poland’s Gdynia and Szczecin shipyards are seeking equivalent industrial arrangements that could revitalize domestic maritime industries and embed high-value technology in Poland’s naval base.
Nonetheless, competition remains intense. Germany’s Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems (TKMS), the long-standing provider of Poland’s current submarine fleet—composed of four aging Kobben-class and one Kilo-class boat—has tabled a robust offer involving the latest Type 212CD submarine, developed in partnership with Norway and integrating cutting-edge air-independent propulsion (AIP), reduced acoustic signature, and lithium-ion battery technologies. The German bid is backed by a detailed life-cycle support proposal, including modular maintenance contracts and potential trilateral cooperation with Norway under the German-Norwegian industrial cluster for submarine sustainment headquartered in Kiel. In April 2025, the German Federal Ministry of Defence offered a €1.2 billion financing package to Poland under the Hermes credit scheme, contingent on TKMS selection, signaling the strategic priority Berlin places on maintaining its maritime-industrial footprint in Central and Eastern Europe.
However, the political and strategic friction between Warsaw and Berlin since 2023 over EU budgetary disputes, arms deliveries to Ukraine, and broader divergences on European defense integration have undercut the credibility of a purely German-Polish alignment. While German platforms offer technological maturity and NATO interoperability, their industrial conditionalities are perceived in Warsaw as overly centralized, with limited scope for Polish shipyards to gain access to core components and sovereign design input.
Sweden’s Saab Kockums, offering the A26 Blekinge-class submarine, enters the competition with a less extensive export record but an agile, stealth-oriented platform optimized for operations in littoral and contested environments—features suited to the Baltic Sea’s unique topology. The A26’s incorporation of a Multi-Mission Portal (MMP), enabling deployment of divers, unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), and naval special forces, aligns with Poland’s increasing emphasis on special operations-capable naval forces. The proposal, however, suffers from capacity constraints in the Swedish defense-industrial base, particularly given Saab’s ongoing commitments to domestic A26 production and Finland’s recent expression of interest in the platform following its NATO accession in April 2024.
South Korea’s Hanwha Ocean, a new entrant in the European submarine market, has invested heavily in promoting its KSS-III platform, a 3,700-ton class with vertical launch system (VLS) capabilities and advanced AIP modules derived from domestic R&D. In June 2025, Hanwha facilitated a high-profile demonstration of its Changbogo-III Batch-II submarine simulator for a delegation of Polish naval officers and defense journalists in Busan. Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) has offered unprecedented industrial cooperation terms, including potential license production in Poland and co-development of future systems under the South Korea–Poland strategic partnership signed in 2023. Nevertheless, European interoperability concerns and the absence of shared operational doctrine between the Polish Navy and East Asian fleets weigh against the Korean bid’s ultimate viability.
Amid this competitive landscape, Poland’s strategic calculus is shaped by a broader reassessment of its defense-industrial dependencies, alliance structures, and maritime security doctrine. The Baltic Sea, once peripheral to NATO’s strategic horizon, has become a core theater following the alliance’s eastward shift and Finland and Sweden’s accession. According to NATO’s July 2025 Baltic Maritime Posture Review, over 70% of Russian Baltic Fleet assets have repositioned from Kaliningrad to dispersed locations following repeated drone strikes in early 2024 and vulnerability of fixed infrastructure. Submarine patrols in this theater now carry not only tactical significance but strategic signaling value.
Within this context, Warsaw’s desire to operate at least three modern AIP-capable submarines with long-range strike and special operations capabilities is not merely a platform requirement—it is a statement of strategic sovereignty and a hedge against future uncertainty in both the EU and NATO. The Polish Ministry of National Defence’s 2025 Defense Capability Development Plan (DCDP-2025) outlines €5.8 billion in planned investments in undersea systems through 2035, with a major procurement decision for the Orka program expected in Q4 2025, and full operational capability (FOC) targeted by 2032. This allocation includes not only platform acquisition but also base upgrades at Gdynia and Świnoujście, submarine crew training systems, and satellite-linked communication suites.
The ELSA program, a parallel French-Polish strategic initiative, functions as both a technological bridge and a political instrument. ELSA, established in 2021 as a pan-European platform for long-range conventional strike development, has gained renewed momentum in 2024–2025 as EU member states seek alternatives to U.S.-centric systems amid growing transatlantic unpredictability under the Trump administration’s second term. Poland’s inclusion in ELSA is therefore not only about missile range—it is about entry into a future European defense architecture where sovereignty is measured by access to the means of deterrence and strategic reach. France’s Directorate General for Armaments confirmed in its May 2025 public report that a trilateral working group on vertical integration of cruise missiles into Polish-designed launch tubes was formed, including MBDA, PGZ (Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa), and Naval Group engineers.
In geopolitical terms, Poland’s procurement trajectory under the Orka program also reflects its increasingly assertive defense diplomacy. Since 2023, Warsaw has signed bilateral defense-industrial cooperation agreements with France, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Each agreement reflects not only procurement logic but also geostrategic hedging. While the U.S. remains Poland’s core security guarantor, with over 10,000 American troops stationed across six rotational bases in 2025, Poland’s perception of Washington’s reliability has become more conditional. This perception is rooted in recurring congressional blockages of Ukraine aid, uncertainties over NATO funding, and broader isolationist signals from the White House.
As a result, Warsaw has sought to expand strategic redundancy through deeper European partnerships. The French vector—embodied in the Orka-ELSA dual track—is especially potent due to Paris’ permanent seat on the UN Security Council, autonomous nuclear deterrent, and global power projection capability. Moreover, French military-industrial ecosystems offer Poland access to not only submarine and missile technologies, but also C4ISR systems, satellite communication constellations, and integrated logistics chains. Naval Group’s 2025 capability portfolio includes next-generation optronics masts, acoustic quieting systems, and full-mission simulators—all of which have been proposed for Polish integration. These technologies align with Poland’s effort to create a comprehensive submarine force ecosystem rather than a platform-only solution.
To fully operationalize this transformation, Poland must address critical institutional and operational challenges. The Polish Navy’s current human capital base includes fewer than 160 qualified submariners, most trained on outdated Kilo-class and Kobben-class doctrines. Transitioning to advanced AIP submarines with networked strike capability will require a decade-long investment in personnel selection, simulation-based training, and joint force integration. The Defense Ministry’s July 2025 Naval Human Capital Development Plan outlines a €270 million investment in new training centers, language qualification programs, and international exchanges with France’s Brest submarine academy and South Korea’s Jinhae Naval Base. NATO’s Allied Maritime Command (MARCOM) has also committed to embedding Polish submarine officers in Mediterranean and North Atlantic training rotations beginning in 2026 to accelerate doctrinal synchronization.
Equally critical is the legislative and procurement transparency dimension. Poland’s previous submarine acquisition attempts—particularly the 2017 tender cancellation under the PiS government—suffered from opacity, political interference, and a lack of consistent technical evaluation criteria. The current Orka tender, managed under the Armament Agency’s new 2024 procurement guidelines, incorporates OECD-compliant cost-disclosure requirements, third-party technical audits, and a structured lifecycle cost analysis framework based on NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) benchmarks. These safeguards are essential to ensure that the final selection process is shielded from lobbying distortions and strategic miscalculations.
Strategic Industrial Offsets, Maritime Infrastructure Expansion, and the Role of Orka in Poland’s Regional Naval Dominance and EU Defense Integration in 2025
The strategic role of industrial offsets within the Orka submarine procurement process has become a cornerstone of Poland’s maritime modernization ambitions, intersecting national defense objectives with industrial policy and regional development. As of mid-2025, the Polish government has insisted that no submarine contract will be finalized without binding commitments to domestic value creation, intellectual property transfer, and integration of Polish firms into long-term global naval supply chains. The Armament Agency’s procurement documentation, updated in March 2025, mandates that at least 45% of the contract’s total value—estimated between €4.8 and €5.6 billion, depending on the configuration—must be executed on Polish territory, with concrete milestones for job creation, technology absorption, and local manufacturing.
Among the key beneficiaries of this offset strategy are the shipyards in Gdynia and Świnoujście, as well as members of Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa (PGZ), including Remontowa Shipbuilding S.A., OBR CTM S.A., and PIT-RADWAR S.A. In a statement released by PGZ in June 2025, the consortium confirmed that detailed technical consultations had already taken place with both Naval Group and Saab regarding the modularization of sonar integration, torpedo tube servicing systems, and C4ISR software localization. According to the Ministry of Development and Technology’s Q2 2025 economic impact report, successful implementation of the Orka program’s industrial offsets could generate over 3,200 high-skilled jobs across five voivodeships, particularly in Pomerania and West Pomerania, and inject over PLN 4.1 billion (€950 million) into Poland’s maritime industrial base by 2030.
The emphasis on industrial co-development is not merely economic—it is structural. Poland’s broader naval doctrine, as updated in the National Security Strategy of May 2025, identifies undersea warfare not only as a deterrence vector but also as a key enabler of strategic depth across NATO’s northeastern perimeter. The proximity of the Kaliningrad exclave, the vulnerability of the Suwałki Gap, and the presence of critical infrastructure nodes such as the Świnoujście LNG terminal and Baltic Pipe project necessitate a layered and persistent undersea surveillance and strike capability. The integration of domestic industry into the submarine program thus ensures both rapid sustainment and technological agility in responding to asymmetric maritime threats, including underwater drone swarms and seabed infrastructure sabotage.
The infrastructure required to support a modern submarine fleet further underscores the scale of transformation. Poland’s current naval basing infrastructure, while adequate for legacy diesel-electric platforms, is insufficient for operating AIP-equipped, missile-capable, multirole submarines. In response, the Polish Ministry of National Defence approved a €780 million Naval Infrastructure Expansion Plan (NIEP) in February 2025, co-financed by the European Defence Fund (EDF) and the European Investment Bank (EIB). This includes the construction of two dedicated submarine piers at Gdynia Naval Base, hardened underground ammunition storage for cruise missiles, a new undersea warfare command center integrated into NATO’s Maritime Command (MARCOM) digital backbone, and upgraded slipways and dry docks for Class-III maintenance at the Naval Shipyard in Gdynia.
A central component of this infrastructural upgrade is the establishment of a Submarine Training and Integration Campus (STIC), modeled after France’s Île Longue and the United Kingdom’s Faslane centers. Scheduled for completion in 2028, the STIC will incorporate full-mission simulators, a submarine escape training tower, and multilingual instruction facilities for interoperability with NATO and EU partners. France has already committed, under the bilateral defense cooperation protocol signed in Toulon in July 2025, to second four submarine warfare instructors to the STIC between 2026 and 2029. Parallel negotiations are ongoing with Italy’s Navy General Staff for co-hosted Mediterranean-Polish undersea warfare exercises, part of a broader EU effort to harmonize regional maritime training regimes through the Coordinated Maritime Presence (CMP) mechanism.
In the geopolitical sphere, Poland’s Orka submarine acquisition is inseparable from the growing strategic competition in the Baltic and the wider reconfiguration of European defense integration mechanisms. As of 2025, Brussels has accelerated the operationalization of the EU Rapid Deployment Capacity (EU RDC), with a maritime component explicitly endorsed in the Strategic Compass Implementation Roadmap published in January 2025. Poland’s active contribution to the RDC maritime pillar, including the offer of one Orka-class submarine for joint EU operations starting in 2030, has been acknowledged by the European External Action Service (EEAS) as a model for dual-national and EU-capable force planning.
At the same time, Poland’s increasing naval ambitions challenge traditional hierarchies within NATO’s maritime domain. As of July 2025, Poland commands one of the largest defense budgets among Eastern NATO members, projected at €36.2 billion in FY2025, with 4.3% of GDP allocated to defense—the highest percentage in the alliance. The procurement of a missile-capable, ocean-going submarine fleet would place Poland among the top six naval actors in Europe by 2032, according to IISS Military Balance 2025 estimates. This naval ascendance has begun to shift NATO’s internal force planning metrics, with MARCOM’s 2025–2029 Capability Targets document referencing Poland as a “lead contributor” in the Baltic undersea domain for the first time.
Concomitantly, the Orka submarine program intersects with Poland’s cyber-defense, artificial intelligence, and ISR capabilities, as Warsaw moves to integrate all-domain awareness into undersea operations. The 2025 Defense Technology Innovation Strategy (DTIS), co-authored by the National Centre for Research and Development (NCBiR) and the Ministry of Digital Affairs, outlines joint development pathways for integrating AI-driven sonar data fusion, secure underwater acoustic communication protocols, and predictive maintenance algorithms into the future Orka fleet. Collaborations with France’s Naval Group, Thales, and Safran, as well as Polish firms such as WB Electronics and PIAP, are underway to create a sovereign submarine mission system backbone that is resilient to Russian electronic warfare and cyber disruption tactics.
The growing threat of hybrid maritime operations—including GPS spoofing, fiber-optic cable severing, and underwater loitering munitions—has pushed Poland to prioritize sensor fusion and real-time data relay capabilities. The Orka platform, therefore, must not only deliver kinetic capabilities but also act as a silent node within a broader Baltic ISR constellation, potentially interfacing with NATO’s AGS (Alliance Ground Surveillance) platform, Copernicus satellite imagery, and undersea autonomous systems. In this context, the Polish Space Agency’s May 2025 announcement of a dedicated maritime surveillance satellite to be launched in partnership with Airbus in 2026 is directly tied to the Orka fleet’s operational concept of persistent deep-sea intelligence collection and threat detection.
Another layer of strategic consideration concerns the role of France as a balancing force within the EU’s evolving strategic autonomy doctrine. Paris views the Orka bid not only as an arms export but as a gateway to deeper defense industrial integration between France and Central and Eastern Europe. In a June 2025 policy brief by the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI), researchers argued that successful Franco-Polish cooperation on Orka could catalyze a broader co-production framework covering naval sensors, autonomous minehunters, and future unmanned underwater vehicles. The brief notes that Poland’s defense modernization is increasingly aligned with France’s vision of European strategic sovereignty, particularly as traditional Western European partners struggle with defense budget constraints and industrial stagnation.
The political alignment between Warsaw and Paris has also intensified in parallel diplomatic domains. Poland has publicly backed France’s position within the EU Military Mobility initiative and the expansion of the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) maritime modules. In turn, France has supported Poland’s calls for stricter CSDP sanctions enforcement on states evading defense-related export controls to Russia and Belarus. These synergies have made the Orka program not only a military and industrial collaboration but also a vehicle for realigning the EU’s security architecture to reflect post-2022 strategic realities.
Nevertheless, challenges persist. Poland’s internal political consensus on submarine procurement, while broadly bipartisan, remains vulnerable to electoral cycles. The 2025 parliamentary budget debates have already surfaced tensions between proponents of increased naval expenditure and those prioritizing air defense and ground mobility in response to Russia’s evolving missile doctrine. Some members of the Sejm’s National Defense Committee have criticized the high lifecycle cost of operating a modern submarine fleet, arguing that funds might be better allocated to loitering munition swarms or additional HIMARS batteries. However, Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, in a June 2025 address to the Security and Defense Council, reiterated that undersea capabilities form the “strategic connective tissue” between deterrence and denial across Poland’s full-spectrum force.
The final decision on the Orka platform is scheduled for late Q4 2025, pending the outcome of a comprehensive technical evaluation matrix that includes platform stealth index, VLS adaptation potential, MTTR (mean time to repair), industrial offset quality, and lifecycle cost per sea day. NATO experts from MARCOM and NSPA are embedded in the Polish evaluation panel, and the process is observed by the European Defence Agency (EDA) for transparency and inter-European harmonization.
The outcome of this decision will not only shape the future of Poland’s undersea deterrence but also signal the direction of European naval industrial cohesion, the viability of strategic autonomy outside U.S. procurement frameworks, and the ability of Europe’s middle powers to translate geopolitical resolve into technologically sovereign defense capabilities. As the Orka competition enters its final phase, the stakes are not limited to platform selection but encompass the strategic identity of Europe’s eastern flank in a fragmented transatlantic order.
The Baltic Sea as Poland’s Strategic Artery: Energy Security, Military Logistics and the Emerging Maritime Threat from Russia’s Baltic Fleet
There is no aspect of Poland’s strategic posture more intimately tied to both its economic vitality and military sustainability than its growing reliance on the Baltic Sea as a logistical artery, energy lifeline, and potential zone of contestation. Since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the centrality of Poland’s maritime infrastructure has increased exponentially, transforming the ports of Gdańsk, Gdynia, Świnoujście, and Szczecin from trade hubs into pillars of Poland’s national resilience. This transformation is not merely quantitative—reflected in increased cargo tonnage or throughput—but qualitative, as Poland’s energy transition, armament deliveries, and strategic autonomy increasingly converge along its Baltic coastline. By mid-2025, the strategic logic of the Orka submarine program, Poland’s defense-industrial strategy, and its geoeconomic realignment within Europe are all anchored in a singular geographical constant: control and security of Baltic maritime space.
The modernization and military utilization of Baltic ports, particularly Gdańsk and Świnoujście, has become a cornerstone of Poland’s logistics chain for high-value armament imports. As of June 2024, Poland had completed the reception of 116 Abrams M1A1 FEP tanks from the United States, followed by continuous deliveries of South Korean weapon systems, including 96 K9A1 self-propelled howitzers, 56 K2 Black Panther main battle tanks, and 41 K239 Chunmoo multiple rocket launchers through Baltic port entries. These imports follow the extensive reallocation of Poland’s own military stocks to Ukraine—over 300 T-72 tanks, 200 BMP-1s, and 20 MiG-29 fighters transferred between 2022 and 2023—necessitating rapid replenishment from non-European suppliers. According to the Polish Ministry of National Defence’s Armament Procurement Report Q3 2024, the value of South Korean weapons imports alone is projected to reach $15 billion by 2027, with a substantial portion routed through the northern maritime corridor. These figures highlight the increasing weaponization of Poland’s Baltic logistics—not in an aggressive posture, but as a reflection of Warsaw’s status as the logistical rear of NATO’s eastern defense architecture.
In parallel, Poland’s Baltic-facing energy infrastructure has undergone a radical realignment. In 2023, Poland imported PLN 132 billion worth of fossil fuels, with 90 percent of natural gas imports arriving through the Świnoujście LNG terminal and the newly completed Baltic Pipe. These two projects—one inaugurated in 2015, the other commissioned in late 2022—enabled Poland to cease all Russian gas imports by early 2023, marking a historic reversal of over five decades of dependency. According to the Polish Energy Policy Review 2024 published by the International Energy Agency, the Baltic Pipe—linking Poland to Norway via Denmark—had an initial capacity of 10 billion cubic meters per year, while Świnoujście’s LNG terminal received 62 shipments in 2023, totaling 6.4 bcm of regasified natural gas. These volumes represent not only a substitute for Russian supply, but a cornerstone of Poland’s decarbonization strategy, industrial reconfiguration, and regional energy diplomacy, especially as Warsaw positions itself as an energy hub for the Baltic states and Western Ukraine.
Complementing this transformation are future-forward projects aimed at consolidating Poland’s role as a northern energy and trade gateway. By 2025, Ørsted and Polska Grupa Energetyczna (PGE) had begun the phased development of the Baltica 2 and Baltica 3 offshore wind farms, with combined projected capacities exceeding 2.5 GW and scheduled for commissioning by 2030. These installations, located in Poland’s exclusive economic zone in the Baltic Sea, are not only emblematic of Poland’s green energy ambitions but are logistically anchored in maritime infrastructure for turbine delivery, grid integration, and maintenance operations. In a complementary development, the Gdańsk Floating Storage Regasification Unit (FSRU)—a joint initiative between Gaz-System and the Ministry of Climate and Environment—has secured final investment approval, with a projected start date in 2028 and capacity to handle 6 bcm of LNG annually. Together with Świnoujście and the Baltic Pipe, this project will give Poland the largest non-Russian-controlled gas import capacity in Central and Eastern Europe by 2030.
The cumulative significance of this infrastructure transcends national borders. Naftoport Ltd., Poland’s largest oil terminal located in Gdańsk, witnessed a 50% increase in crude oil throughput in 2023 compared to 2022, driven by the European Union’s embargo on Russian seaborne crude imports. According to ORLEN Group’s Annual Report 2024, over 80% of Poland’s crude oil in 2023 came from Saudi Arabia and Norway, with minor but growing shares from the U.S. (5.3%), Nigeria (5%), and the U.K. (2.4%). These flows, routed through maritime terminals and vulnerable sea lanes, underscore the Baltic’s role as both an energy backbone and a potential bottleneck under adversarial pressure. ORLEN’s Strategic Investment Framework to 2030 includes up to PLN 320 billion in capital expenditures, with major allocations to maritime-linked assets, including expansion of LNG import capacity, coastal SMRs (small modular reactors), and offshore wind servicing infrastructure.
The implications for national revenue are equally stark. In 2022 alone, Poland’s four largest ports contributed PLN 58 billion in tax revenues, a figure expected to rise significantly by 2026 as the expansion of Gdynia’s container capacity and Świnoujście’s LNG and military dual-use capabilities progress. A separate government initiative launched in 2024—the Baltic Logistics and Defense Corridor (BLDC)—has earmarked PLN 10.26 billion for coordinated investment in port infrastructure, rail and road connections to NATO deployment zones, and cybersecurity for critical maritime nodes. According to the Ministry of Infrastructure’s midterm evaluation of the BLDC, these enhancements are expected to raise Poland’s annual cargo handling capacity by 30% and reduce strategic mobilization time by 48 hours in wartime scenarios. In addition, expanded connectivity with non-European markets is reflected in trade statistics: by the end of 2023, maritime cargo traffic with Africa accounted for 16% of Poland’s non-European seaborne trade, followed by North America (6.9%), Asia (6.6%), Latin America (6.1%), and Oceania (0.9%), according to Statistics Poland’s Foreign Trade Yearbook 2024.
Yet this growing maritime centrality is emerging within an increasingly contested strategic environment. Russia’s Baltic Fleet, headquartered in Kaliningrad, remains a formidable regional force despite the drawdowns experienced by the Russian Navy in the Black Sea and Pacific theaters. As of mid-2025, the Baltic Fleet maintains over 40 surface combatants equipped with Kalibr (3M14T) land-attack and Kh-35 (3M24) anti-ship missiles, supported by advanced air defense systems such as the Poliment-Redut (9K96). Although currently operating a single Kilo-class submarine in the Baltic, the Russian Ministry of Defence has openly considered deploying new Improved Kilo II submarines to the region once delivery of the final units to the Pacific Fleet is completed in late 2025. These diesel-electric platforms, displacing up to 3,950 tons submerged and armed with 3M54 and 3M14 Kalibr missiles, possess land-attack strike ranges between 1,500 and 2,500 kilometers. Their operational endurance of 45 days and demonstrated ability to evade Ukrainian sea drones in the Black Sea suggest a credible threat to NATO infrastructure from the seabed up.
Russian doctrine continues to prioritize anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities in Kaliningrad, integrating coastal missile units like the Bastion-P and Bal systems, as well as the 132nd Mixed Aviation Division’s Su-24 and Su-30 aircraft equipped with air-launched anti-ship missiles. These are supplemented by Su-27 squadrons and long-range artillery units. Russia’s posture has not remained static: under the centralization of Russian Navy command since 2023, logistical and command flexibility has increased, allowing transfer of naval assets between fleets to reinforce the Baltic as needed, a dynamic already demonstrated by shifts between the Northern and Black Sea Fleets during critical operations in 2022–2024. According to the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), the Russian Navy could, with limited notice, double its missile-launching capacity in the Baltic by redeploying assets from the Northern Fleet, thereby overwhelming NATO surveillance and interception cycles.
The asymmetric threat spectrum is further complicated by Russia’s proven ability and intent to sabotage critical maritime infrastructure. The sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in September 2022, within the exclusive economic zones of Denmark and Sweden, was a watershed moment in European undersea vulnerability. Subsequent incidents—the Svalbard fiber-optic cable rupture (January 2022), Balticconnector gas pipeline and telecom cable damage (October 2023), and the gas pipeline sabotage in Brunsbüttel, Germany (December 2023)—form a disturbing pattern. In August 2024, the Swedish Security Service (Säkerhetspolisen) publicly warned of Russian preparations for sabotage against NATO infrastructure, while U.S. intelligence agencies tracked anomalous Russian naval behavior near transatlantic cables. These warnings were further underscored by Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev’s threats to destroy Western maritime assets in retaliation for the Nord Stream incident, highlighting a doctrine that no longer distinguishes between military and economic maritime targets.
These hybrid threats are compounded by kinetic incidents. In October 2024, the Russian minesweeper Aleksandr Obukhov was reportedly sabotaged in Baltiysk by Ukrainian special forces, demonstrating that port vulnerabilities are shared across adversaries. Moreover, the increasing use of unmanned surface and sub-surface vehicles—employed extensively by Ukraine in the Black Sea—foreshadows their likely proliferation in Baltic conflict scenarios. This creates an operational environment where Poland’s surface combatants, constrained in ASW capacity, are at substantial risk, and where the survivability, stealth, and strike capabilities of submarines—like those envisioned under the Orka program—become indispensable for national and alliance deterrence.
The idea that the Baltic Sea has become a “NATO lake” following Sweden and Finland’s accession, though popular in rhetorical circles, is analytically false. NATO’s permanent maritime presence in the Baltic remains limited, with Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 (SNMG1) rotations often reduced to symbolic levels due to global mission requirements. Germany and Sweden must also reallocate surface vessels for the defense of key assets such as the port of Hamburg or the island of Gotland. In such a scenario, Poland’s ability to independently operate advanced submarines capable of penetrating Russia’s A2/AD bubble and surveilling critical maritime zones becomes a strategic necessity—not just for Warsaw, but for the security of the Baltic States and NATO’s northern flank.
This maritime threat calculus, in turn, reshapes Poland’s force structure planning. The obsolescence of ORP Orzeł—a Soviet-built Kilo-class submarine commissioned in 1986—has left a critical capability gap, particularly as Russia’s missile-equipped naval platforms proliferate. Without modern undersea assets, Poland lacks the ability to deter or pre-empt adversarial naval operations targeting energy terminals, critical ports, or undersea cables. Given the escalating tempo of Russian hybrid maritime operations, this absence is no longer tolerable. In the words of Vice Admiral Jarosław Ziemiański, commander of the Polish Navy, speaking at the Maritime Security Forum in Gdynia in May 2025: “We cannot afford a surface-only Navy in a domain where the surface is increasingly visible and vulnerable.”
The strategic imperative is clear. Poland’s maritime economy, military logistics, energy security, and alliance credibility now depend on unbroken control of its Baltic access—an access increasingly threatened not just by the Russian Navy, but by an integrated campaign of gray-zone sabotage, undersea disruption, and hybrid strike vectors. The only platform capable of persistent, silent, autonomous presence in this contested environment is the submarine. As Poland enters the final phase of the Orka selection, the integration of economic, military, and hybrid threat considerations into a single doctrine of maritime sovereignty is no longer optional—it is existential.
| Poland’s Baltic Maritime Infrastructure, Energy Security, and Military Logistics (2022–2025) | |
|---|---|
| Strategic Role of Baltic Ports | The Baltic ports of Gdańsk, Gdynia, Świnoujście, and Szczecin have become essential logistics hubs for both military and economic operations. Their importance surged after February 2022, facilitating large-scale arms imports and fossil fuel deliveries while enabling Poland’s decoupling from Russian energy dependency. |
| Military Equipment Delivered via Baltic Ports (as of September 2024) |
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| Total Value of South Korean Armament Shipments | Approximately USD 15 billion (equivalent to over PLN 60 billion), highlighting South Korea’s role as a critical defense supplier and the reliance on maritime supply routes through the Baltic ports. |
| Poland’s Fossil Fuel Imports (2023) |
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| Gas and LNG Supply Details (2023) |
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| Crude Oil Import Origins (2023) |
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| Energy Infrastructure Expansion Plans |
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| Port Development Projects |
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| Baltica 2 + 3 Wind Farm Projects |
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| Economic Contribution of Baltic Ports (2022) | PLN 58 billion in tax revenues from the ports of Gdańsk, Gdynia, Szczecin, and Świnoujście. |
| International Maritime Cargo Volume Growth (2022–2023) |
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| Russian Baltic Fleet Capabilities (2025) |
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| Improved Kilo II Submarine Specifications |
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| Recent Russian Hybrid Sabotage Operations |
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| Russian Anti-Access/Area Denial Assets in Kaliningrad |
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| Strategic Observation | Despite Finland and Sweden joining NATO, the Baltic Sea is not securely controlled by the Alliance. NATO has limited naval assets in the region, and countries such as Germany and Sweden may need to retain warships for domestic port protection. This necessitates that Poland maintain independent undersea capabilities to protect itself and the vulnerable Baltic States against potential Russian aggression or sabotage. |
