Poland wants the EU focused on security. Its border with Belarus highlights the challenges
Poland wants the EU focused on security. Its border with Belarus highlights the challenges
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Poland's six-month presidency of the European Union is firmly focused on security. As Europe’s biggest land war in decades rages, fewer places highlight the challenges and contradictions of defending the bloc and its values more starkly than the border with Belarus.
Some 13,000 border guards and soldiers protect around 400 kilometers (250 miles) of border. It’s become a buffer zone since Belarus’ ally, Russia, invaded neighboring Ukraine three years ago. Similar fortifications farther north line Poland's frontier with the Russian region of Kaliningrad.
Poland is Ukraine’s top logistical backer. Most of the Western-supplied arms, ammunition and equipment helping to keep Ukraine’s armed forces afloat transit through. Russia, meanwhile, uses Belarus as a staging ground for its invasion. At the border near the town of Połowce, a 5.5-meter (18-foot) steel barrier strung with razor wire and topped by security cameras separates once-friendly communities that war has turned into wary rivals. Drones, helicopters and armored vehicles keep watch.
The border crossing is closed. Around 40 border guards and troops could be seen on Jan. 16, when the Polish EU presidency invited 60 reporters from international media to witness the security effort. The road was strewn with layers of concrete obstacles and concertina wire likely to dissuade an advancing army. Border guards peered into Belarus.
It’s needed, the government in Warsaw says, because Russia and Belarus are waging a particular kind of hybrid warfare: helping groups of migrants — mostly from Africa or the Middle East — to break through the border to provoke and destabilize Poland and the rest of Europe.
