More than half of Poles want nuclear weapons stationed in the country, a new poll has shown.
The survey, conducted by UCE Research and published on February 20, revealed that 53 per cent of those asked wanted Poland to have nuclear weapons while 28 per cent opposed the idea.
Those who identified with the right-wing Confederation party were most keen on Poland having nuclear weapons, with 71 per cent expressing such a desire.
Some 60 per cent of main opposition Conservatives (PiS) voters were also in favour of the idea, closely followed by the centrist Third Way Coalition, part of the government, on 57 per cent.
Those who supported the other parties that made up the current Polish Government headed by Prime Minister Donald Tusk were less favourable. Some 44 per cent of Tusk’s party voters were in favour, and 41 per cent of the Left party’s electorate.
Last year, the PiS-aligned President Andrzej Duda backed the idea of locating nuclear weapons on Polish soil. During talks with the US about Polish participation in NATO’s nuclear sharing programme, he said nuclear weapons could be deployed in Poland, although they would remain under the control of the US.
Duda argued that the presence of such warheads was needed in Poland because of Russia’s militarisation of the Kaliningrad Oblast, the westernmost part of Russia, and Moscow moving its nuclear weapons on to Belarusian territory.
The Polish President declared that if a decision was taken to locate a nuclear arsenal on NATO’s Eastern flank as part of a nuclear weapons sharing programme, Poland was “ready and willing to host them”.
The Tusk administration, though, poured cold water on the idea, saying that was not the position of the Polish Government.
Then-US president Joe Biden’s administration had denied there were any plans to locate US nuclear weapons in Poland.
The issue was not discussed during Duda’s short meeting with current US President Donald Trump at the CPAC event in Washington on February 22.
