A visit to Poland’s last line of defence

by Alexandra Brzozowski

Poland’s fortified buffer zone against Belarus and Russia could see a surge in migrants in the coming months, officials here warn, as spring temperatures encourage more people to attempt border crossings.

The resources Poland has devoted to defending this area underscore the continued heightened sense of alarm in the country’s senior ranks over the relative ease with which Moscow has engaged in hybrid warfare along NATO’s eastern flank.

"There it is, the new Iron Curtain," Mariusz Ochalski, colonel of the Polish Armed Forces, said, pointing at the five-and-a-half-metre steel barrier at the Polowce-Pyasachatka border crossing, around 200 kilometres east of Warsaw.

"The tension," he added, "is not at the same level as the Cold War, but we should have the same approach and be ready at any time."

Fortified with drones, armoured vehicles and digital monitoring tools, the barrier, protected by some 13,000 border guards and soldiers, is a striking manifestation of a new hybrid warfare.

The wall erected during the border crisis in the region instigated by Belarus in the late summer of 2021 serves two purposes: to keep out illegal migrants weaponised by Belarus and – in the worst-case scenario – to delay any potential advance by Russian troops.

But while the number of illegal crossings through the border has gradually fallen by two-thirds since the wall was erected, according to Polish authorities, Warsaw is bracing for a new surge this year.

Migration pressure

Belarus has been helping groups of migrants – mostly from Africa or the Middle East – break through the border to provoke and destabilise Poland and the rest of Europe since 2021. However, the pressure significantly increased with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Over the past year alone, almost 30,000 attempted border crossings were recorded – an average of 100 per day – primarily by young men from countries such as Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, and Syria.

At the same time, Polish authorities have registered around 10,000 arrivals on their territory over the same period.

Migrants are lured to Russia and Belarus through legal channels, mostly with student visas, taken to the border by security services – a roundtrip that costs them $8,000-$12,000 – and helped across the border, Polish authorities say.

Attacks on border guards often involve migrants using slingshots, small explosives, or pepper spray. In one case last year, a migrant trying to enter Poland illegally allegedly stabbed a border guard, seriously injuring him.

The migrants are hard to discourage.

“Warning shots don’t work, so the force is needed,” Colonel Andrzej Stasiulewicz, deputy commander of the Podlaski border guard division, said.

Those who would still try and force their way in are sent back to Belarus, a practice Warsaw defends as in line with its legal framework.

“We have tightened our visa policy, and above all, we have decided to suspend the right to asylum wherever we are dealing with mass border crossings organised by Belarus and Russia,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk told reporters on Friday.

When EU interior ministers meet in Warsaw for informal talks next week, the issue is expected to top the agenda, with Poland likely to push for an exemption from the EU’s migration pact.

Poland rejects the pushback allegations, preferring the term “turnbacks.”

Warsaw argues that migrants are obliged to apply for asylum in good faith at open border points, not force their way in.

EU leaders gave a pass to Poland’s measures at a summit in December. Member states on Europe’s eastern flank received a green light to suspend the right to protection when they believe that they are being “weaponised” against them.

Quiet before the storm

Nevertheless, Polish authorities say it could be quiet before a larger storm comes this year, especially with warmer spring weather and more favourable crossing conditions.

"For us, it is absolutely necessary to be prepared for very different scenarios," Maciej Duszczyk, Poland’s Deputy State Secretary for Migration, told Euractiv during a walk towards the border crossing.

Should this year see protracted peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, Minsk and Moscow could try to exploit the situation, Duszczyk warned.

"If the situation becomes more complicated on the battlefield in Ukraine, maybe Belarus could try to show us that it can destabilise us even more than before, we have to be prepared for another hybrid attack," he said.

An additional trigger could be the Belarusian presidential elections taking place in less than a week, this Sunday; potential riots and unrest after the polls could cause more opposition supporters to attempt to leave the country.

"It’s possible that regime critics, who will be attacked by the Secret Service of Belarus, will try to cross the border - we, of course, would open the doors to them," Duszczyk said, adding this could add to the regular migration pressure.

Strongman Aleksandr Lukashenko’s election win in 2020 triggered unprecedented mass demonstrations against election rigging by the regime in Minsk.

Police had violently pacified the protests, with human rights groups saying some 30,000 protesters and opposition figures had been detained in connection with them.

This time around, the Belarussian opposition said it would not encourage people to take to the streets.

"I expect the regime to intensify repression in the short term, targeting activists, independent voices, and anyone showing dissent - but cracks within the system are growing," Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya told Euractiv.

Her diplomatic advisor, Dzianis Kuchynski, said he believes that given the growing instability of his regime, Lukashenka may further escalate his tactics.

"His alliance with Putin emboldens him to act recklessly, creating threats not only to Belarus’ neighbours but to European security as a whole," Kuchynski told Euractiv, calling on the EU to counter the provocations.

Extending the ‘Eastern Shield’
Polish officials stress that the border infrastructure should be seen as a bulwark designed to protect the whole of Europe, not only Poland.
Beyond the barrier to mitigate migration pressures, Warsaw launched the ‘Eastern Shield’ project earlier last year, a Maginot Line-type fortification to stop Russian tanks.

The plan involves bolstering border security with anti-tank defences, electronic and aerial surveillance and military bases.

With costs rising, Warsaw is looking for funding, which could also come through a European Commission proposal put forward in December that would see EU frontline countries receive an additional $178 million to upgrade electronic surveillance equipment, improve telecommunication networks and counter-drone intrusions.

Defence officials privately admit that the Maginot Line example – a strip of fortifications on the German-French border that failed to stop Nazi Germany’s invasion – is a reminder that no extensive fortifications guarantee stopping a potential enemy.

But to many of them, the experience of the war in Ukraine, which built fortifications on the border with Russia in the Kherson region, indicates that fortifications in modern warfare have not become obsolete.

As soon as it is completed – the Polish government aims for 2028 at the latest – it will run behind the anti-migrant wall, structured in three rows, with anti-tank ditches, rows of hedgehogs, and potentially mined areas.

"If Ukraine had had something like this before 2022, perhaps history would be different now," the deputy chief of the General Staff, Stanislaw Czosnek, told reporters.

*first published in: Euractiv.com