Dutch Defense Minister Rubens Brekelman announced the deployment of 300 Dutch soldiers, along with two Patriot air defense systems, to Poland on Wednesday.
The Dutch troops will arrive in Poland on Dec. 1 and not leave the country before May 2026.
As per NOS, Brekelmans said the Patriot systems will operate in Poland to bolster NATO’s eastern flank, with the deployment not being part of recent talks on security guarantees for Kyiv.
“We are doing this to protect NATO’s eastern flank, an important military hub for defending Ukraine and deterring and further discouraging the Russians,” he said.
The Netherlands’ last remaining Patriot system will stay behind to ensure the country’s domestic security.
The deployment is part of long-standing NATO security arrangements on the alliance’s eastern border.
Also on Wednesday, a Russian-made Shahed drone exploded in the village of Osiny in Poland’s Lublin region, roughly 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
Some villagers’ windows were shattered and debris was scattered around the drone’s impact site, though no one was injured.
The Dutch government has previously stressed the importance of Ukrainian security for NATO and European security as a whole.
The country is also among the Western nations that have donated F-16 fighters to Ukraine, with all 24 pledged presumably already delivered to the war-torn nation.
On Aug. 5, the Netherlands also became the first NATO country to buy US weapons for Ukraine under US President Donald Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) scheme.
Brekelmans said at the time that supporting Ukraine by buying weapons from the US would increase the pressure on Russia to negotiate.
“The more Russia dominates Ukraine, the greater the danger to the Netherlands and our NATO allies,” Brekelmans said.