Poland Deploys 11,000 Troops on Belarus Border

Poland has increased the number of troops on the border with Belarus to 11,000, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on social media platform X.  

According to him, the country has invested PLN 2.7 billion in the construction of the border barrier.  

On Saturday, Tusk visited the Polish-Belarusian border with Defence Minister Władysław Kosyniak-Kamysz and Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak. After meeting with the leadership of the army, border guard and police, he said that he had received a report confirming the involvement of the Lukashenko regime in migrant smuggling.  

‘We also know about Russia's involvement, so we are dealing not only with smuggling, but also with the state machine,’ Tusk said.  

He also announced new arrests of people involved in migrant smuggling. According to the Prime Minister, these criminal groups are international in nature.  

Tusk stressed that Polish services are effectively countering human smuggling:  

‘We have achieved a 98 per cent detention rate, which means that 98 attempts to illegally cross the border were prevented thanks to the resolute position of our soldiers, the Border Guard and the police,’ he said.  

He also stressed that 11,000 military and security personnel are guarding the border and recalled the large-scale investment in the border barrier.

As The Gaze previously reported, the newly created 16th Mechanised Brigade of the Polish Army, deployed in the east of the country, will start defending the border with Belarus on 1 August this year as part of Operation Safe Podlasie.

Earlier, Tusk announced that a decision to suspend the right to asylum for migrants crossing the border through Belarus would soon come into force.

In 2021, tens of thousands of people tried to cross the Polish border with Belarus, which sent them there in response to sanctions imposed on Minsk.