A NATO member U-turned on buying Black Hawks, suggesting Russia’s war shows they aren’t the best weapons to focus on

NATO member Poland has postponed its purchase of 32 S-70i Black Hawk helicopters, with military officials there suggesting the way Russia is fighting in Ukraine shows they’re not the right equipment for it to focus on.

General Wieslaw Kukula, the Polish armed forces chief of staff, said at a Friday press conference that “we have decided to change the priorities of the helicopter programs” in order to “better adapt to the challenges of future warfare,” Reuters reported.

Poland’s deputy defense minister, Pawel Bejda, said on X that his country’s military, pilots, and experts were analyzing the geopolitical situation, as well as “the war in Ukraine” and what Russia is buying and equipping its military with.

Poland shares a land border with Ukraine.

Grzegorz Polak, a spokesman for Poland’s Armament Agency, which buys equipment for its military, told Reuters that its priorities needed “some correction” and that it might be necessary to buy other equipment instead of the helicopters, “such as drones, or tanks, or some kind of communication.”

He also told Polish outlet Defence24 that the armed force’s priorities have changed amid evolving threats.

Poland, like other European countries, has warned that Russia could attack elsewhere on the continent.

Its prime minister, Donald Tusk, warned in March that Russia’s big military investments suggest it’s readying for a conflict with someone bigger than Ukraine in the next three to four years.

Poland is already the highest spender on defense in NATO, as a proportion of its GDP, and has been a major ally of Ukraine throughout the invasion.

Helicopters over Ukraine

Helicopters have played a role in Russia’s invasion, with both sides using them to counter drones, offer air support, and launch attacks.

They were particularly effective for Ukraine against Russia’s attempts to seize a key airfield shortly after the invasion began in February 2022, and for Russia during Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive.

But they have also proved vulnerable.

The proliferation of air defenses has meant that they, like other aircraft, have had to hang back from frontline fighting more than in past conflicts, making them far less useful.

Ukraine’s success at taking down Russia’s Ka-52 helicopters in 2023 meant Russia started using them less. Many were hit by US-provided M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS.

Reports suggest that Russia lost more than 100 helicopters in the first two years of the war.

Ukraine has also destroyed some Russian helicopters at bases far from the front lines.

Even so, losses could have been higher. Mark Hertling, a former commander of United States Army Europe, told BI in January that Russia has been “very poor” in the way it used helicopters and other air assets, but also that Ukraine’s air-defense shortages have protected them.

Andrew Curtis, an independent defence and security researcher who spent 35 years as a UK Royal Air Force officer, told BI last year that one lesson Western countries could take from the war is “about the vulnerability of helicopters in the modern battlefield where hiding and seeking is not a child’s game, it’s a matter of life and death.”

A helicopter strategy

The S-70i is a variant of the UH-60 Black Hawk made by PZL Mielec, a Polish company owned by the US’s Lockheed Martin.

Poland’s plan to buy them began in 2023, under a previous government. The aim was for the helicopters to be used for combat and logistics, and to work with AH-64E Apache Guardian attack helicopters ordered from the US.

Bejda, the deputy defense minister, said the latest move did not involve terminating a contract, as one was never signed.

But it has still led to some domestic issues.

Mariusz Blaszczak, Poland’s former defense minister, described the decision as a disgrace in a post on X, saying it would lead to job losses, delays in replacing the country’s helicopter fleet, and a loss of interoperability because Poland’s military already uses some Black Hawks.

The postponement comes after Poland spent years investing in helicopter technology, including ordering 96 Apache Guardians in a deal signed last year, and 32 Leonardo AW149s in a deal signed in 2022.

Bejda said Poland would still prioritize some helicopters, including training and combat helicopters, a heavy transport helicopter, and search and rescue helicopters.

But the government, which took office at the end of 2023, clearly views increasing the fleet as less important than investing in other military assets.

The war in Ukraine has led Western countries to boost their own defense spending and to change their priorities, including through buying more air defenses and drones, investing more in tanks, and even bringing back old types of training like trench warfare.

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