Poland’s defence ministry has approved the deployment of extra troops to the Belarus border in response to a request from the border guard service, as reported by the state-run news agency PAP on Tuesday.
The border guard service of Poland had petitioned the defence ministry to dispatch an additional 1,000 soldiers to the border due to a surge in attempts to illegally cross it. The deputy interior minister revealed this information on Monday.
Given the swiftly evolving scenario along the Polish-Belarusian border, the defence ministry’s response was to fulfill the request and allocate supplementary soldiers for patrolling the border. The ministry was quoted by PAP as stating, “Due to the dynamic situation on the Polish-Belarusian border… the Minister of National Defence ordered that the request be implemented and that additional soldiers be assigned to patrol the Polish-Belarusian border.”
To bolster security, Poland had earlier erected a fence on the border with Belarus, which also incorporates electronic protection.
Recent weeks have seen the presence of soldiers from the Wagner mercenary group near the border, an occurrence that Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki interpreted as an attempt to disrupt the stability on NATO’s eastern flank.