Poland will double the number of troops stationed on the border with Belarus by sending another 2,000 troops instead of the 1,000 previously announced, Deputy Interior Minister Maciej Wasik said on Wednesday.
“It will not be a thousand soldiers, but two thousand,” Wasik told the Polish news agency PAP, quoted by the French AFP, referring to the reinforcement approved by the Defense Ministry.
Poland has recently warned of the threat of provocations by Belarus and of the potential dangers posed by the presence of thousands of mercenaries from the Wagner Group in the neighboring country.
Mercenaries from private Russian groups, very active in the war against Ukraine, were transferred to Belarus after a brief rebellion against the Russian military hierarchy in June.
Warsaw also accused Belarus and Russia of orchestrating a new influx of migrants into the European Union (EU) to destabilize the region.
To deal with a record number of crossing attempts, Polish border guards asked earlier this week to send 1,000 troops, but the government doubled the reinforcement.
The troops will be deployed within two weeks, joining the 2,000 troops already stationed along the border with Belarus, the eastern border of the EU and NATO, of which Poland is a part.
In addition to the army, Poland currently has more than 5,000 border guards and 500 riot police deployed on the border with Belarus.
Wasik said that the Belarusian guards themselves organized the attempts to enter Poland illegally through the border with Belarus.
“If we had real border guards on the other side, and not smuggling services, these crossings wouldn’t exist at all,” he said.
According to Polish border guards, 19,000 migrants have tried to enter Poland since the beginning of the year, compared with 16,000 in all of 2022.
Just last month, more than 4,000 migrants tried to cross the Polish border.
Belarus, led by Alexander Lukashenko, supports Russia’s war against Ukraine, triggered by the invasion launched by Moscow on February 24, 2022.
Since the summer of 2021, thousands of migrants and refugees from the Middle East and North Africa have crossed or attempted to cross the Polish border.
The West accused Belarus of orchestrating this influx with the Russian ally, as part of a hybrid attack, which Minsk denies.
In response, Poland closed the border to non-residents, including aid workers and the media, for nine months.
He also erected a metallic barrier equipped with electronic equipment and authorized the return of immigrants, a practice condemned by international organizations and the courts.
Source: TSF
