For the countries bordering Russia or its closest ally, Belarus, the anxiety is palpable. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Poland has been particularly committed to kyiv. And watch his back closely. This Wednesday, a deputy interior minister, Maciej Wasik, announced the deployment of 2,000 additional soldiers to reinforce the eastern border with Belarus.
Poland recently warned of the threat of provocations from Belarus and the potential dangers posed by the Wagner mercenary group based there. Warsaw has also accused Minsk and Moscow of orchestrating a new influx of migrants into the European Union in order to destabilize the region.
Many crossing attempts
To deal with a record number of crossing attempts, the Polish border guards had requested at the beginning of the week the dispatch of a thousand soldiers. “It will not be a reinforcement of 1,000 soldiers, but of 2,000,” Maciej Wasik told the PAP agency on Wednesday, adding that this decision had been approved by the Polish Minister of Defense.
The troops should be deployed within two weeks and will join the 2,000 soldiers who are already stationed near the border with Belarus, the eastern limit of the EU. On Wednesday, Maciej Wasik added that all attempts to enter Poland illegally via this route were orchestrated by Belarusian services.
“Smugglers”
“If, on the other side, we had real border guards, and not smugglers’ services, these crossings would not exist at all,” said Maciej Wasik.
According to Polish border guards, 19,000 migrants have tried to enter Poland since the start of the year, compared to 16,000 in the whole of 2022. Last month alone, more than 4,000 migrants tried to cross the Polish border. .