2023-08-09 13:40 update: 2023-08-10, 13:11
Maciej Wasik. Photo PAP/Albert Zawada
The Polish government will deploy an additional 2,000 troops to the Belarusian border, a deputy interior minister told PAP on Wednesday.
Maciej Wasik said the decision to send troops was made during discussions at the Council of Ministers for National Security and Defence Affairs.
The deployment follows a number of attacks on Polish security forces launched from Belarus.
There are also mounting fears that the Belarusian authorities could try to push migrants across the frontier once again in a repeat of the 2021 migration crisis that saw hundreds of people trying to force their way into Poland.
At the moment there are about 2,000 troops on the Polish-Belarusian border, supporting hundreds of police and Border Guard officers.
The Border Guard commander had originally asked for an additional 1,000 soldiers but Mariusz Blasczak, the defence minister, and the Security Committee had decided to double the number.
"This reinforcement will not be 1,000, but 2,000 soldiers. This decision was made by the Security Committee, and by Minister Mariusz Blaszczak," Wasik said.
According to the deputy minister, the soldiers will arrive on the border within the next two weeks in order to support the Border Guard, both in the Podlaskie and Lubelskie regions.
Wasik said that pressure on the Polish-Belarusian border area is growing, although it is not comparable to how it was two years ago. He also noted, all attempts to illegally cross the border are organised and prepared by the Belarusian services.
"If we had real border guards on the other side, and not a smuggling service, these crossings would not exist at all," he said. (PAP)
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