The Border Guard’s request was announced by Deputy Interior Minister Maciej Wąsik on Monday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Wąsik told a media briefing in Warsaw: “We need much more troops at the border. The head of the Border Guard has asked the Defence Ministry to deploy 1,000 more soldiers at the Polish-Belarusian border. “
The deputy interior minister said that illegal migrants had stepped up attacks on Poland’s border personnel and soldiers, smashing a window in a Border Guard car, among other incidents.
He added that Belarusian officials were disrupting Polish border infrastructure to help migrants cross illegally into Poland.
“Entry into Poland wouldn’t be possible without the involvement of Belarusian officials,” Wąsik told reporters, adding the migrant pressure was being orchestrated by Russian and Belarusian security services.
Tomasz Praga, the head of the Border Guard agency, said: “We are dealing with another wave of illegal migrants and another phase of hybrid warfare on the Polish-Belarusian border.”
He added that there had been 19,000 attempts to cross illegally into Poland from Belarus this year, compared with less than 16,000 in the whole of 2022, the PAP news agency reported.
On July 27, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that “[Belarusian leader Alexander] Lukashenko’s attack on the Polish border,” starting in the autumn of 2021, “and the artificially created migrant crisis,” represented “a prelude” to Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, launching the largest military campaign in Europe since World War II.
Monday is day 528 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
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Source: PAP, tvp.info