The Polish Defense Minister announced, on Wednesday, the construction of a barrier along the border with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, to prevent the illegal crossing of migrants, organized by Russia, according to Warsaw.
Poland has already set up a physical and electronic barrier along its border with Belarus, Russia’s ally, accusing the Belarusian regime of allowing willing migrants to reach the European Union, a charge Minsk denies.
After the launch of flights connecting the Middle East and North Africa with Kaliningrad, “I decided to take measures to increase security on the border with the Kaliningrad enclave. “We started building a temporary barrier there,” Marius Blaschak told reporters.
He explained that the barrier will consist of three parallel fences of barbed wire 2.5 meters high and 3 meters in total width, in addition to electronic equipment.
He insisted that work begins “today” on this 210-kilometer land border.
To prevent the migration crisis, which Poland considers a Russian and Belarusian “hybrid war” directed against it, Warsaw imposed in September 2021 an area about three kilometers wide and more than 400 kilometers long on its border with Belarus.
This area was off-limits to all non-residents, including members of NGOs that assist immigrants and journalists.
Since this measure was lifted last July, it is still forbidden to approach within 200 meters of this limit, protected by a five-meter-high iron barrier, in the process of being equipped with cameras and motion detectors.
Despite the common practice of pushbacks applied by Poland, about 100 attempts to cross the Polish-Belarusian border illegally, mainly by migrants from the Middle East, are reported daily by border guards and NGOs working in the field.
