UK Foreign Secretary visits Polish naval yard building the first Miecznik frigate

The Rt Hon Yvette Cooper, the UK Foreign Secretary, has visited the PGZ Naval Shipyard (PGZ Stocznia Wojenna) in Gdynia. In the yard's hull hall she saw work under way on the future ORP Wicher – the first of three multi-role frigates of the Miecznik programme, built jointly with Britain's Babcock International. The visit underlined that this programme has become the most tangible dimension of defence cooperation between Warsaw and London.

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27 june 2026   |   09:00   |   Source: Gazeta Morska   |   Prepared by: Kamil Kusier   |   Print

fot. PGZ Stocznia Wojenna

According to the shipyard, the Foreign Secretary was accompanied by a delegation including Jen Tyldesley, Deputy Head of Mission at the British Embassy in Poland. The visitors were shown the yard's production infrastructure, with the centrepiece being the Hull Hall (Hala Kadłubowa) – the tallest ship-assembly hall in Poland – where the first Miecznik frigate is taking shape. The talks covered the progress of the work, technology transfer and the programme's significance for the defence capabilities of Poland and the wider Baltic Sea region.

A visit in the shadow of the first frigate

For PGZ Naval Shipyard, this was a visit of considerable symbolic weight. The Gdynia yard – Poland's oldest active naval shipyard, in continuous operation since 1922 – is the prime contractor and integrator for the entire programme, with Britain's Babcock as its key industrial and technological partner. The presence of the UK's chief diplomat beside the hull of a warship under construction is hard to read as anything other than political confirmation of the importance both capitals attach to the cooperation.

The visit coincided with Cooper's trip to Poland this week. On 25 June, as the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC 2026) was being held in Gdańsk, the Foreign Secretary announced nearly £290 million for Ukraine's recovery and energy security. The visit to the Gdynia yard thus fitted into a broader regional security context in which the Baltic and NATO's eastern flank now occupy a central place.

Miecznik: the largest naval programme in Polish history

The Miecznik programme – miecznik is Polish for "swordfish" – covers the construction of three multi-role frigates for the Polish Navy. It is the largest contract in the history of Polish shipbuilding and, at the same time, the largest modernisation programme for the Polish fleet, with an estimated value of around 15.4 billion złoty (roughly £3 billion). The contract was signed in 2021 between the Armament Agency and the PGZ-MIECZNIK consortium; the original budget of around 8 billion złoty grew to its present level following amendments at the end of 2023.

The PGZ-MIECZNIK consortium is made up of PGZ Naval Shipyard as technical leader and Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa (PGZ), Poland's state defence group, with Babcock International as the main partner on the British side. The strategic partners also include Thales UK and MBDA UK – which immediately places the programme among undertakings with a strong British component, not only at hull level but also in systems and weapons.

The ships themselves are modern vessels around 138 metres long, some 20 metres in beam and with a maximum displacement of roughly 7,000 tonnes. Their tasks are to include the surveillance and control of sea areas, the protection of bases, the engagement of surface, sub-surface and shore targets, and naval air defence – including in an allied context. The frigates will carry, among other things, launchers for Britain's CAMM and CAMM-ER air-defence missiles. The Miecznik ships are to replace the Polish Navy's worn-out Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigates – ORP Gen. K. Pułaski and ORP Gen. T. Kościuszko – which entered US Navy service back in 1980 and were passed to Poland in the early 2000s. (The prefix ORP, Okręt Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, is the Polish equivalent of HMS.)

Wicher, Burza and Huragan. Where the programme stands

The three sister ships carry names evoking pre-war Polish destroyers: Wicher (Gale), Burza (Storm) and Huragan (Hurricane).

Wicher is the most advanced. Steel-cutting took place in August 2023, the keel was laid in early 2024, and in December 2025 a bow block weighing more than a thousand tonnes – built at the partner yard CRIST – was transported into the Gdynia hull hall. The launch of the first frigate is planned for August 2026, the nearest and most spectacular milestone of the programme. The ship is due to be handed over to the navy in 2029.

The second vessel, Burza, has already passed steel-cutting (May 2025) and keel-laying (December 2025), and in May 2026 PGZ Naval Shipyard signed a contract with the Nauta repair yard for the construction of her stern block – another example of building domestic capacity and a local-content model concentrated in Gdynia. The third and final frigate, Huragan, began its story on 28 April 2026 with the symbolic cutting of the first steel. Under the current schedule, the whole programme – with delivery of Huragan – is to be completed by the end of 2031.

The British thread: Arrowhead 140 and technology transfer

The most important element linking the programme to the United Kingdom is the design itself. The Miecznik frigates are based on Babcock's Arrowhead 140 (AH140) – the same platform on which the Royal Navy's Type 31 frigates and vessels for Indonesia are being built. Babcock builds ships of this type at its yard in Rosyth, Scotland, where the process is more advanced, allowing it to pass to Polish industry experience that reaches well beyond the construction of individual hulls – from engineering support, through knowledge transfer, to the training of shipyard personnel.

It was precisely this technology transfer that – according to the yard – was one of the topics of the visit. For Poland, Miecznik means not only new ships but also the building of competencies that could, in future, open the way for domestic industry into foreign markets. For the British side, the programme is in turn evidence of the export potential of the AH140 design and of the durability of the two countries' industrial ties.

Why it matters for the Baltic

The introduction of three modern frigates is set to transform fundamentally the capability of the Polish Navy, which has for years relied on ageing units. Against a backdrop of rising tension on NATO's eastern flank and the militarisation of the Baltic, the ability to conduct surveillance, air defence and the engagement of surface and sub-surface threats takes on particular significance.

The visit of the UK Foreign Secretary to the construction of the first of these ships was therefore more than a courtesy gesture. As the shipyard stressed, the partnership with Babcock – and, more broadly, UK-Poland cooperation – remains one of the foundations of the largest naval programme in the history of the Polish fleet. In a little under two months, when Wicher first touches the waters of the Gulf of Gdańsk, that foundation will become considerably more visible to all.

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program Miecznik PGZ Stocznia Wojenna Yvette Cooper ORP Wicher fregaty dla Marynarki Wojennej

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