Poland Considering Closing Two Remaining Checkpoints On Border With Belarus

This was announced by Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski.

The Polish government is considering closing all remaining checkpoints on the border with Belarus. This was announced by Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski in an interview on TVN on the evening of June 22, Business Insider reports.

“In connection with Belarus' actions, we are considering closing all border crossings. We are currently studying whether this affects the economy,” Sikorski said.

He explained that this is due to the unrest with migrants on the border.

“The Finns closed the border crossings with Russia, and the problems ended,” the Minister added.

In recent weeks, the situation with migrants on the Polish-Belarusian border has worsened. The number of attempts to illegally cross the border has increased again, and at the end of May, there were several incidents with attacks on employees of the Polish Border Guard. A soldier wounded by a migrant while patrolling the border died a few days later.

Due to the escalation, Warsaw decided to return the 200-meter buffer zone on the border with Belarus.

At the border between Poland and Belarus, there is currently only one border crossing for passenger transport (Brest — Terespol) and one for trucks (Kukuryki — Kazlovichy), as well as a freight railway crossing. The Polish side closed the checkpoint in Bobrowniki in 2023 after Andrej Poczobut, a journalist from Hrodna and a representative of the Polish minority, was sentenced to 8 years in prison in Belarus. The checkpoint in Bruzgi was closed in the autumn of 2021 due to attacks by migrants trying to illegally cross the border.

In Sikorski's interview, Belarus was mentioned in the context of Poland's participation in the EU migration pact.