Poland Considers Closing Border with Belarus, Says Prime Minister

Poland is considering serious sanctions against Belarus, including the potential closure of borders, transit, and trade crossings. This was announced by Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki during a joint press conference with Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, as reported by TASS.

“We are considering steps in the form of more and more serious economic sanctions, including the closure of the Polish-Belarusian border by Poland,” he said, emphasizing that everything will depend on the actions of the Belarusian authorities.

“We want to give (Belarusian President Alexander) Lukashenko the opportunity to retreat and return the migrants to their countries of origin,” Morawiecki added, reminding that Poland has so far decided to close only one border checkpoint at Kuznica. “But the migrants have not yet returned,” the head of the Polish government stated, insisting that the Polish side has video evidence showing how Belarusian services instruct migrants to attack Polish security forces.

“This indicates that the actions of the Belarusian services could lead to escalation,” Morawiecki added. “We are ready to close new crossings, to close transit and trade opportunities to exert economic pressure,” he said.

“Today, at our eastern border—Poland's eastern border—we are dealing with a new type of war, in which migrants and disinformation are used as weapons. We are facing hybrid warfare,” stated Morawiecki, accusing the Belarusian authorities and Russia of being responsible for the situation.

According to him, in addition to the growing migration crisis, there is a threat to the eastern borders of the EU and NATO from “artificially induced energy crisis” and “growing Russian military activity in Ukraine.”

The crisis at the border between Belarus and Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, where migrants have accumulated since the beginning of the year, sharply escalated on November 8. Several thousand people have come from the Belarusian side to the Polish border and have not left the border zone, with some attempting to enter Polish territory by breaking through barbed wire. EU countries accuse Minsk of deliberately escalating the crisis and are calling for sanctions to be imposed. Lukashenko claims that the Western countries are to blame for the created situation, as people flee from war due to their actions.