Polish Navy on the rise: admirals move into the top tier of national command

A change-of-command ceremony aboard ORP Lublin carries a message that reaches far beyond the quaysides of Świnoujście and Gdynia. The wave of senior appointments announced across the Polish Armed Forces this June means that, for the first time in well over a decade, officers in navy blue are moving into the highest echelons of national command – and on three of its most important levels at once. The change at the helm of the 8th Coastal Defence Flotilla is only the most visible piece of a much larger reshuffle.

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08 june 2026   |   22:52   |   Source: Gazeta Morska   |   Prepared by: Kamil Kusier   |   Print

fot. Marynarka Wojenna RP

Aboard ORP Lublin, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz handed personnel decisions to Rear Admiral Piotr Sikora and Commander Artur Kołaczyński. Effective 1 July, the outgoing commander of the 8th Coastal Defence Flotilla will take up the post of Deputy Operational Commander of the Armed Forces, while command of the Świnoujście-based flotilla passes to the current chief of staff of the Maritime Operations Centre – Maritime Component Command (COM-DKM).

Read in isolation, a single handover would be a routine changing of the guard. But this muster comes at a moment when the Ministry of National Defence is carrying out one of its broadest command reshuffles in years – and one in which the Navy plays a leading, rather than a supporting, role.

A new commander at Świnoujście

Rear Admiral Piotr Sikora had led the 8th Coastal Defence Flotilla since 1 February 2023. His career has revolved around one of the most demanding specialisations in any navy – mine warfare and mine countermeasures.

Born in 1969 in Paczków in southern Poland, Piotr Sikora is a graduate of the Faculty of Navigation and Naval Weapons at the Polish Naval Academy in Gdynia. He began his professional service in 1994 with the 13th Minesweeper Squadron in Hel and worked his way through every rung of shipboard command, from departmental officer to commander of a group of vessels. He commanded the minesweepers ORP Śniardwy and ORP Mamry and the minehunter ORP Czajka.

His defining moment came in 2013, when, from the deck of ORP Kontradmirał Xawery Czernicki, Piotr Sikora led Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group 1 (SNMCMG1) – becoming only the second officer in the history of the Polish Navy entrusted with command of that elite Allied formation. Two years later his command abilities were recognised with the "Buzdygan" award, an informal "military Oscar" presented by the monthly magazine Polska Zbrojna. He commanded the 13th Minesweeper Squadron from 2014 to 2018 and, across the decade from 2013 to 2023, was deeply involved in the Navy's flagship modernisation programme: the construction of the Project 258 Kormoran II-class minehunters, from the design phase through to their entry into service. He was promoted to Rear Admiral on 14 August 2023.

Piotr Sikora's move to the role of Deputy Operational Commander of the Armed Forces marks a step up from a tactical-level formation to the strategic command of the entire armed forces in operational activity. For an officer rooted in the mine-warfare community, it is further proof that a specialisation once seen as a niche has become a route to the very top.

The new commander of the 8th Coastal Defence Flotilla, Commander Artur Kołaczyński, is promoted from the post of COM-DKM chief of staff – a role tied closely to the day-to-day command of maritime forces at sea. He takes over a tactical formation responsible, among other tasks, for protecting the critical infrastructure of Poland's western coast – the Świnoujście LNG terminal and the Baltic Pipe gas pipeline – an area whose importance in the current Baltic security environment can hardly be overstated.

Reshuffle at the very top: COM-DKM and the General Command

What is happening in Świnoujście flows from the decisions announced by the Ministry of National Defence on 3 June, during a ceremony at the ministry's headquarters. The most significant move for the fleet played out across two central commands:

Vice Admiral Krzysztof Jaworski, commander of the Maritime Operations Centre – Maritime Component Command since May 2018, takes up the post of Deputy General Commander of the Armed Forces. His place at COM-DKM is filled by Vice Admiral Piotr Nieć, transferring from the Operational Command of the Armed Forces.

Krzysztof Jaworski is one of the most experienced admirals in the fleet. Born on 5 June 1966 in Gdynia, he is a graduate of the Naval Academy in Gdynia. He built his seagoing career in the 3rd Ship Flotilla – from departmental officer aboard the missile vessel ORP Metalowiec to commanding officer of ORP Hutnik in 1994–1997. He served in Afghanistan as part of NATO's training mission (and was twice awarded the Afghanistan Star), completed defence policy studies at the National Defense University in Washington, and a course at the US Naval War College in Newport. He was chief of staff of the 8th Coastal Defence Flotilla in 2015–2016 and then, until 2018, commander of the 3rd Ship Flotilla. He received the rank of Vice Admiral on Polish Armed Forces Day in August 2018.

His successor, Vice Admiral Piotr Nieć, is an officer whose name will be familiar to Daily Mare readers from our recent coverage. With the Navy since 1990, Piotr Nieć is a graduate of the Naval Academy in Gdynia and of two US institutions – the US Naval Academy in Annapolis and the US Naval War College in Newport. He commanded the frigate ORP Gen. K. Pułaski and the Polish Military Contingent "Pułaski", which operated within NATO forces in the Mediterranean and Black Seas. He served as chief of staff of NATO's Standing Group SNMG1, taking part in Operation Active Endeavour and the counter-piracy Operation Ocean Shield in the Indian Ocean. From 2018 to 2021 he commanded the 8th Coastal Defence Flotilla, and after a period in the Navy Inspectorate and at the Allied CTF Baltic headquarters in Rostock, he served from October 2025 as Deputy Operational Commander of the Armed Forces. He was promoted to Vice Admiral in late 2025. He now returns to Gdynia to take up one of the two most senior command posts available to a sailor in the Polish Armed Forces.

One detail is worth pausing on, because it links all of these biographies. Krzysztof Jaworski, Piotr Nieć and Piotr Sikora – the three officers at the centre of this reshuffle – each passed at different points in their careers through the 8th Coastal Defence Flotilla in Świnoujście and through NATO's standing mine-countermeasures and maritime task groups. Once again, the Świnoujście flotilla confirms its reputation as a forge of the Polish fleet's senior command talent.

Naval aviation and the wider round

The June round also reached naval aviation. Colonel (pilot) Wojciech Wróblewski, until now with the Polish Air Force University, will on 1 July take command of the Naval Aviation Brigade – the formation responsible for the Navy's air component, from shipborne and search-and-rescue helicopters to patrol aircraft.

The remaining decisions announced on 3 June concerned mainly the land forces, cyberspace and Allied posts – among them, Lieutenant General Maciej Klisz was named chief of staff of Allied Joint Force Command in Brunssum, Major General Karol Molenda will become a cyber-security expert at NATO's Allied Command Transformation in Norfolk, and Major General (pilot) Ireneusz Starzyński will become Deputy General Commander of the Armed Forces.

What it all means: the Navy returns to the top table

Behind the individual names lies a deliberate strategic choice. For the first time in well over a decade, Polish Navy officers sit simultaneously among the most senior commanders at all three key levels of the structure – the General Staff, the General Command and the Operational Command of the Armed Forces.

Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz has made no secret that this is an intentional shift. He explained that he wanted navy blue to be represented across all of the central commands in Warsaw – those that genuinely shape the armed forces as a whole. He has put it more bluntly in the past, saying he would like to see more sailors among the people running the Polish military. The ministry also stresses that the appointments are not political, but reflect the preparation, experience and service records of the officers concerned.

For the maritime community, this is a meaningful signal. For years there were complaints that, in an army numerically dominated by the land forces, the maritime perspective was under-represented where decisions on money, equipment and priorities are taken. Admirals moving into central posts mean that the fleet's voice – at a time when the Baltic has become one of Europe's most contested waters, and the protection of undersea and coastal critical infrastructure has risen to the level of a strategic task – will be heard closer to the top of the chain of command.

Whether this marks a lasting change in the balance, or simply the coincidence of a single appointments season, will be shown by the years ahead and by the next rounds of postings. One thing is certain: the summer of 2026 will go down in the history of the Polish Navy as the moment when navy blue took a clear step towards the centre of command of the Polish Armed Forces.

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Marynarka Wojenna RP 8 Flotylla Obrony Wybrzeża zmiany kadrowe w wojsku kontradmirał Piotr Sikora Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz

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