Poland to send additional 2,000 troops to Belarus border

Poland will send an additional 2,000 troops to reinforce its eastern border with neighbouring Belarus, a deputy interior minister said Wednesday (9 August), as a record number of migrants try to cross.

Poland has worried increasingly about the border area since hundreds of battle-hardened Wagner mercenaries arrived in Belarus last month at the invitation of President Alexander Lukashenko.

“This will not be a reinforcement of 1,000 but of 2,000 soldiers,” Maciej Wasik told the PAP state news agency, adding that the move was approved by the defence minister following a request from the national border agency for extra manpower.

The troops are slated to be deployed within two weeks and will join the 2,000 soldiers already stationed near the border.

Warsaw has accused Belarus and Russia of orchestrating a new migration influx into the European Union in order to destabilise the region.

Belarus started military exercises near the border this week, and the country’s president Alexander Lukashenko said several times that he is restraining Wagner fighters who want to attack Poland.

Poland has also seen an increase in the number of mainly Middle Eastern and African migrants trying to cross the border in recent months. For the past two years it has accused Belarus of recruiting migrants in poor countries and sending them across the border illegally to foment instability.

Wasik on Wednesday added that all attempts of illegal crossings into Poland through that route are staged by the Belarusian services.

“If on the other side we had real border guards, and not smuggling officers, these crossings wouldn’t exist at all,” Wasik said.

According to the Polish border guard, 19,000 migrants have tried to enter Poland from Belarus so far this year, compared to 16,000 during all of 2022.

Last month alone, more than 4,000 migrants tried to cross the border.