"Poland is taking a leadership role in today’s complex threat environment by selecting IBCS over legacy stove-piped systems that were designed decades ago for a much different threat profile," Northrop Grumman Vice President for Missile Defence Dan Verwiel said. "IBCS is the future of multidomain operations and with it, Poland will have a state-of-the-art system to modernize its integrated air and missile defence capabilities."
READ MORE: US Could Reach Deal With Poland on American Military Base Within 1 Year — DoD
The IBCS control system outlined in the $714 million contract features open architecture which will allow integration of disparate radars and weapons, as well as interoperability with current and future missile defence systems, the release said.
Later in the day, Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz announced that a US missile defence base in the northern Polish village of Redzikowo may be fully functional by the end of 2020.
The US base in Radzikowo, located close to Poland's northern Baltic coast, has been under construction since 2016. The facility will include radar tracking and missile systems.
"There is a chance that before the end of the next year this base will be completed and ready for action," Czaputowicz said at a press conference in the Polish capital of Warsaw.
In February, Russian President Vladimir Putin slammed the United States for breaching the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty by launching target missiles and setting up launch pads in Romania and Poland. Putin stressed that the possible US deployment of missiles to Europe would threaten the security of Russia and the whole world.
Meanwhile, the United States has continued to claim that its military facilities in Eastern Europe are intended to improve coverage against threats allegedly coming from outside NATO.
