DHAKA: Poland says it will start recruiting in September for a new 35,000-strong paramilitary defense force because of tensions with Russia.

Polish defense minister Antoni Macierewicz said top positions in the Territorial Defense Force had already been decided, reports the BBC.

The force will have civilian volunteers trained in military skills. It is aimed at countering ‘hybrid’ warfare of the kind that led parts of Ukraine to break away and pledge loyalty to Russia.

Nato also plans to reinforce Poland.

One Nato battalion will be deployed to Poland and three more to the neighboring Baltic states - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The total troop deployment is expected to be about 4,000, on a rotating basis.

A Nato summit in Warsaw on 8-9 July will finalize the details of that deployment. Several of Nato’s 28 member states will send troops to beef up the alliance’s presence in the east, near the Russian border.

Russia's annexation of the Ukrainian Crimea peninsula in March 2014 and the insurgency by pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine sent a chill through Nato members who used to be in the Soviet bloc.

Russia has also deployed Iskander-M nuclear-capable missiles to Kaliningrad, a territory sandwiched between Poland and the Baltic states.

BDST: 1250 HRS, JUNE 04, 2016
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