Poland and weapons of mass destruction
Poland is not known to have weapons of mass destruction today. In the Cold War, Soviet nuclear warheads were kept in Poland to be used by the Polish People’s Army, and Poland helped Russia work on destroying large chemical and biological weapons from the Warsaw Pact.
Poland has joined key arms-control treaties. It ratified the Geneva Protocol in 1929, the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1995 (and has not declared any offensive chemical weapons program or stockpiles), and the Biological Weapons Convention in 1973. In 2004, Poland and Russia agreed to work on destroying chemical weapons, including Russia’s lewisite stockpiles.
Poland also had Soviet nuclear weapons under the Warsaw Pact. The Polish army had aircraft such as MiG-21, Su-7, and Su-22, and short-range missiles that could deliver nuclear weapons. In 1991, Poland said it would remove nuclear-capable delivery systems, keeping only a few conventional missiles before they were retired.
From the 1960s, nuclear weapons were stored on Soviet bases in Poland to be available for use in wartime. Three storage sites were built by 1969 near Brzeźnica-Kolonia, Podborsko, and Templewo. A 1970 agreement on how they would be used did not clearly define transferring warheads, allowing some ambiguity; the agreement ended in 1990 and the weapons were probably removed.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, some Polish politicians proposed hosting nuclear weapons under NATO, and President Andrzej Duda said the idea had been discussed. Jarosław Kaczyński said he would like Poland to have nuclear weapons but called it unrealistic. On 7 March 2025, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Poland has begun serious talks with France about relying on France’s nuclear umbrella for protection.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 17:43 (CET).