Poland to negotiate purchase of 22 AW101 helicopters from Italy's Leonardo

Poland is seeking to negotiate for the purchase of 22 AW101 helicopters produced by PZL-Swidnik, the Polish unit of Italy’s state-controlled defence and aerospace group Leonardo, the defence minister said on August 11.

Poland is modernising its armed forces as a result of the war in neighbouring Ukraine, and plans to spend around 4 per cent of gross domestic product on defence in 2023, Reuters reports.

“Another good news for the Air Assault Forces,” Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak wrote in a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. “Today we sent an invitation to negotiations for the delivery of 22 multi-role AW101 helicopters, which will soon replace post-Soviet models.”

On August 7, Poland received its first anti-submarine AW101 helicopter under a deal signed in 2019.

In July, Poland signed a contract worth 8.25 billion zlotys ($2.04 billion) to buy 32 AW149 helicopters built by PZL-Swidnik. ($1 = 4.0387 zlotys).