Poland’s defense minister Mariusz Blaszczak said on Saturday that the country has increased the number of troops protecting its border with Belarus to prevent “destabilizing” actions by the neighboring country, an ally of Russia.
Mariusz Blaszczak met in Jarylowka, eastern Poland, with part of the army recently deployed at the border and stressed that the increased military presence is intended as a deterrent and not a hostile act, as Minsk and Moscow claim.
“There is no doubt that the Belarusian regime is collaborating with the Kremlin and that the attacks on the Polish border are intended to destabilize our country,” he said.
Two Belarusian military helicopters temporarily violated Polish airspace last week, in what Warsaw regarded as a deliberate provocation.
Tensions between Minsk and Warsaw are currently high, in a context of division over the war in Ukraine, with Poland helping Kiev financially and militarily, while Belarus is an ally of Moscow.
Poland announced on Thursday that it will bolster security along its border with Belarus with some 10,000 soldiers as a way of deterring provocations following the presence of mercenaries from the Russian group Wagner in the neighboring country.
Warsaw also claimed an increase in attempted illegal entry of migrants across the Belarusian border, in what it viewed as a hybrid war orchestrated by Minsk and Moscow to destabilize the region.
Source: DN
