On August 1, Poland and South Korea’s Hyundai Rotem signed a second multi‑billion dollar agreement for the supply of 180 K2 Black Panther main battle tanks, building on a 2022 framework deal that already included a first batch of 180 K2s and up to 1,000 K2PL vehicles in future deliveries. The new contract broadly reported as valued at $6.5 billion, includes 81 support vehicles, plus a turn‑key training, service and maintenance package.
Of the 180 tanks, 117 will be produced in South Korea, while 61 units will be built at the Bumar‑Łabędy plant in Gliwice, in cooperation with Hyundai Rotem, marking a concrete step toward Poland’s goal of industrial capacity and technology transfer in the domestic arms sector. Polish Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak‑Kamysz hailed the agreement as a signal that “we are building arms plants throughout Poland” and “demonstrating that arms production can drive the economy”.
The first shipments of the new batch are scheduled to arrive in 2026, with Polish production kicking in between 2028 and 2030, and will join earlier-delivered units from the 2022 deal in the 16th Mechanised Division and other armoured brigades across Poland’s eastern flank. Poland currently allocates 4.7 percent of its GDP to defence in 2025, with plans to raise that to 5 percent in 2026, as it intensifies military readiness amid sustained security threats from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
This build-out dramatically expands the Polish Army’s tracked armoured fleet, positioning Warsaw to become one of Europe’s largest operators of the K2 tank, second only to South Korea itself and deepens defense cooperation between NATO and Seoul. The deal also underlines Poland’s strategy to reduce dependence on legacy platforms like the Leopard 2 and create a European production hub for advanced armoured systems, bolstering NATO readiness along its borders with Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine.
