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What Poland's Afghan exit meant on 30 June 2021
Summary
A look back at the day the last Polish troops left Afghanistan, as a major naval exercise ran in the Black Sea.
What did the end of Poland's Afghan deployment look like on 30 June 2021? On that date the last Polish troops left Afghanistan, closing the country's involvement in the war there. Around 33,000 Polish troops had served in Afghanistan over the course of the war, and 44 were killed in action.
The departure marked the close of a long commitment, measured both in the number of personnel who rotated through and in the losses Poland sustained.
Two days earlier, on 28 June 2021, the Sea Breeze military exercise had begun in the Black Sea. It was reported at the time as the largest in the history of the exercise.
Taken together, the two developments showed military attention in different theatres on the same days: one deployment ending in Afghanistan, and a large-scale exercise getting under way in the Black Sea, the waters bordering Ukraine.
