Poland signs $4.75bn deal with US on Patriot missiles

Warsaw signed the largest weapons procurement deal in its history on Wednesday, agreeing with the US to buy Raytheon Co’s Patriot missile defense system for $4.75 billion, Reuters reports. “It is Poland’s introduction into a whole new world of state-of-the-art technology, modern weaponry, and defensive means,” President Andrzej Duda said. The deal will allow NATO member Poland to conduct air and missile defense operations with allies the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Greece, which already have the Patriot systems. Warsaw is currently in tense relations with Washington over a bill introduced in January to impose jail terms for any suggestion of Poland’s complicity in the Holocaust. The US says the bill subverts freedom of speech.