0of 5,000

Help us find 5,000 new members. Bring one friend.

Share your personal link and make us stronger in 2027.

0 found so far

Goal 5,000

News Feed

Poland aims to fully fortify border with Belarus by mid-2025, senior official says

• 2 min read
Poland aims to fully fortify border with Belarus by mid-2025, senior official says
Polish border guards near the new fence on the Polish-Belarusian border near the village of Nowdziel on June 30, 2022, in Podlaskie Voivodeship, Poland. (Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Poland plans to complete its fortified border wall and close the border with Belarus by next summer, aiming to curb what it sees as Russia's and Belarus's "hybrid war" through illegal migration, Polish Deputy Interior Minister Maciej Duszczyk told the Financial Times on Dec. 29.

The initiative follows strained relations between Poland and Belarus, a close ally of Russia, after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Warsaw has accused Belarus of orchestrating migrant flows into Poland to pressure the EU over sanctions, a claim Minsk denies.

Additional reinforcements along the 400-kilometer (250 miles) eastern border include installing night vision cameras, thermal imagers, and a new patrol road, as well as strengthening the five-meter steel fence built in 2022.

Poland is investing over 2.5 billion zlotys ($611 million) in the project, with half the funding allocated by the current government under Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

"This artificially created migration route will be closed during next summer, I hope and believe it," Duszczyk said. He added that once complete, the border’s security would be "as close to 100% as possible."

Tensions escalated in May after a Polish border guard was critically injured by a migrant using a makeshift spear to breach the existing fence. In response, Tusk announced plans to create a 200-meter-wide buffer zone along the border with Belarus.

Despite the border fortification, Duszczyk warned of potential attempts by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko to escalate tensions or sabotage Poland’s infrastructure.

Avatar
Tim Zadorozhnyy

Reporter

Tim Zadorozhnyy is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent covering foreign policy, U.S.-Ukraine relations, and political developments across Europe and Russia. He studied International Relations and European Studies at Lazarski University and Coventry University. Tim began his journalism career in Odesa in 2022 as a reporter for a local television channel. He later spent a year and a half at the Belarusian independent media outlet NEXTA, first as a news anchor and later as a managing editor. He is fluent in English, Ukrainian, and Russian.

Read more
News Feed
 (Updated:  )

The grounding was the first nationwide flight stoppage since January 2023, when an FAA computer system malfunctioned. Before that, the last nationwide grounding followed the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

 (Updated:  )

Local authorities later on Nov. 13 reported that a rescue worker from the Cobra emergency service was killed when a concrete slab fell on him while he was clearing debris from a building damaged in the Russian attack.

Show More