will have a permanent base in eastern europe. translation: here in poland, there will be a permanent - presence of the us army. the fifth army corps. i was able to speak to president andrzej duda at the nato summit in madrid. president andrzej duda, thank you so much for speaking to me exclusively here on the bbc at the nato summits. what are your thoughts about what is happening here at the nato summit? have you heard, are you satisfied with what you are hearing? she translates question. translation: first of all, i have to say this nato - summit is forsure of historical nature. because you can say the following. a green light was given during the summit for accepting into nato finland and sweden. this is an incredibly important piece of news for the entire alliance but especially for its eastern flank. because these are the cities of the baltic sea region, this is a very important piece of information for poland. this also will extend the broader between russia and the alli
to nato, and, of course, as a result of the invasion of ukraine, this has changed dramatically. today, russia is directly the biggest threat to nato states, especially to its eastern flank, the flank on which poland is located. and boosting nato in our part of the world, in our part of europe today is the element which is being discussed at length here. here, decisions are being taken, decisions which are reflected both in the new strategic concept of nato, which is being adopted today, but also it is reflected in the joint declaration which says that the countries in a special situation, those which are particularly involved in helping ukraine, can also count on certain special treatment. president zelensky, who has your mobile number, who calls you to talk, to give advice, should he be asking for ukraine tojoin nato? should he be pushing for that?
to ukraine, for example. unfortunately, this has become a fact and reality in recent months. we weren t listened to and everybody can see in a very clear way what russian energy dominance means. poland has done so much for the refugees, so, so much, i saw it myself, the amount of refugees coming and being brought into polish homes. i wonder, are you worried about the safety of poland? do you think poland is at risk from russia? translation: potentially, you can i say, as for russian imperialism, i it is something that we have known in poland historically very well, and that is why we have adopted such a robust stance, that is why we have demanded support from nato to make sure that the polish people can feel safe and secure. but this is also why we are making decisions in poland to adopt a new law regulating the polish army, armed forces. this is the act on the defence of poland. we have increased our defence
and he was saying about the sadness that he feels that they had been warning, poland was among those countries who had been warning about the risk of threat of russia for a long, long time, and it was falling on deaf ears. and, now, there is this sense that if only they had listened a little bit earlier, if only the international community had heeded what poland had been saying for a long time now. he even mentioned how at the summit the last time the strategic concept for nato was put together, the russian president was at the summit himself. it was president dmitry medvedev, he was at the summit, later was talking about partnerships with russia. and so that was kind of a sense of sadness that had the international community, had they listened to poland a little bit earlier, you hear that expressed by the president as he was here,
and which was attacked without any reason and without anyjustification in a brutal way by russia. but are you frustrated that nato didn t heed your warnings? you have been warning about russia for a long time and it fell on deaf ears. are you not frustrated that it has come to this? she translates question. translation: i cannot say that i feel some kind of frustration. l i am happy that nato responds in an adequate way to what is happening east of poland. and let me put it in the following way. from my perspective, from the polish perspective, this response is satisfactory. today, we have got in poland nato troops deployed. today, we have 11,000 us troops in poland. today, we have got infrastructure in poland, and today, president biden announced that us presence will be transferred into permanent presence. the president stressed today