No reason was given for the resignations.

However, they come against a backdrop of heightened tension between the upper echelons of the armed forces and the government, after defence minister Mariusz Blaszczak said in May that the army had failed to inform him of a missile heading towards the country in December.

Polish media reported that a military object found in a forest in northern Poland in April was a Russian KH-55 missile and that Polish armed forces had seen an object entering the country’s airspace in December but lost track of it.

Today, armed forces operational commander Tomasz Piotrowski and chief of staff Rajmund Andrzejczak submitted their resignations, spokesmen for the respective services told Reuters.

“I can confirm that the operational commander (Piotrowski) has terminated his employment relationship. He has resigned from professional military service,” said the press spokesman for the Polish Armed Forces, Jacek Goryszewski.

The resignations were first reported by the Rzeczpospolita daily.

“(It is) a complete disgrace for Minister Blaszczak, who has long crossed over the line into using the Polish Army in a partisan way,” Tomasz Siemoniak, a former defence minister from the opposition Civic Platform, wrote on social media platform X.

“This is a PiS disaster in the defence sector at a time of great threats to Poland,” he said.

Rattled by Russia’s invasion of neighbouring Ukraine, Poland has increased military spending to around 4% of national output this year and has also moved soldiers to its border with Belarus, a close ally of Moscow.

With a closely contested election in Poland on Oct 15, experts said the pace of military spending and the domestic debate around it were being driven in part by campaigning.