Stop there. The Polish Minister of Defense announced on Wednesday the construction of a barrier along the border with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, to prevent illegal crossings of migrants. Movements orchestrated by Russia, according to Warsaw. Poland has already set up a physical and electronic barrier along its border with Belarus, an ally of Russia, accusing the Belarusian regime of letting in migrants wishing to reach the European Union, which Minsk denies.
Following the launch of flights linking the Middle East and North Africa with Kaliningrad, “I decided to take action to increase security at the border with the enclave of Kaliningrad. We are starting to build a temporary barrier there,” Minister Mariusz Blaszczak told reporters. According to him, the barrier will consist of three parallel fences of barbed wire, 2.5 meters high and an overall width of 3 meters, as well as electronic equipment. Work has begun on this 210 kilometer long land border.
To prevent a migration crisis that Poland considers to be a Russian and Belarusian “hybrid war” directed against it, Warsaw imposed in September 2021 a zone approximately three kilometers wide and more than 400 kilometers long on its border with Belarus. This area was forbidden to all non-residents, including members of NGOs helping migrants and journalists. Since the lifting of this measure last July, it is still forbidden to approach within 200 meters of this border, protected since by a metal barrier five meters high, in the process of being equipped with cameras and motion detectors. .
Despite the common practice of pushbacks applied by Poland, around a hundred attempts to illegally cross the Polish-Belarusian border, by migrants mainly from the Middle East, are reported daily by border guards and NGOs operating on square.