Poland has inaugurated a defensive line along its border with Russia and Belarus amid growing tensions and is offering Ukraine defense loans to fight the war on its front.

“Construction of the Eastern Shield has begun! » Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Thursday X.

The Eastern Shield is part of a joint regional defense infrastructure plan of NATO’s Eastern Flank, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

It should include new physical barriers and surveillance systems, the Kyiv Independent reported.

It should also include satellites.

Several excavators could be seen digging dirt from the border Poland shares with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, according to kyiv’s Independent.

In May, Tusk said Belarus had “increasingly aggressive intentions towards Poland. Warsaw has for years accused Russia’s loyal ally of pushing migrants into the country.

The defensive line should also deter illegal immigration.

Poland has allocated about $2.5 billion for the project, the largest operation to strengthen its eastern border since 1945, officials said.

The country is also offering Ukraine a “defense loan” to buy weapons from Polish factories on credit as its war against Russia drags on, according to reports.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said in an interview with Polsat News that this could have been proposed at the start of the war between Ukraine and Russia.

Since the beginning, Poland has provided billions of dollars in aid to its southeastern neighbor.

The loan could be repaid after the country is rebuilt, Sikorski added.

The developments came as Russia launched an hours-long bombardment of drone attacks on kyiv and other city centers that lasted all day Saturday, injuring an 82-year-old woman and a police officer. according to reports.

The Ukrainian military said air defenses destroyed 39 of 71 Russian drones.

“This year we faced the threat of ‘Shahed’ drones almost every night,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on X, referring to the situation. Iranian-made attack drones used by Russia.

“More pressure is urgently needed to limit Russia’s ability to produce such weapons,” he added.

In the meantime, Zelensky slammed the United Statesthe United Kingdom and Germany for “merely observing” the assembly of North Korean troops in Russia to train and prepare for combat in Ukraine.

Separately, a Russian court on Friday sentenced Robert Shonov, a Russian citizen and former employee of the American consulate, to four years and ten months in prison.

Shonov was arrested in May 2023 and accused of conspiracy and gathering information about the special operation in Ukraine.

The US Embassy in Moscow said the accusations were “completely false and unfounded.”

With post wires