The Polish Ministry of Defense is very keen that the border with Russia’s Kaliningrad is sealed. To ensure this, the country is erecting a barbed wire fence – the work is already in full swing.
Poland wants to set up a temporary barrier on its more than 200-kilometer border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak told the PAP agency in Warsaw that it was 2.5 meters high and three meters wide barbed wire. The work would begin immediately. “It is very important to us that this border is sealed,” emphasized the politician from the Law and Justice Party (PiS).
Blaszczak justified the step on the one hand with national security. On the other hand, migrants from the Middle East or North Africa would come to Kaliningrad by plane and try to get to EU territory from there. Additional devices for electronic border surveillance are to be installed along the barrier. On the Polish side, a fence is planned in advance of the border to protect wild animals.
Kaliningrad, formerly East Prussian Königsberg, belongs to Russia and lies on the Baltic Sea between Poland and Lithuania. Polish President Andrzej Duda supports “all initiatives that lead to increased security in Poland and its citizens,” said a spokesman for the head of state.
Last year Poland had already completed a wall along the EU border with Belarus. At the time, however, Polish government representatives spoke of a “barrier” or “block” – they avoided the term “wall” used by the opposition.
The government in Warsaw accused the Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko of bringing refugees from crisis regions to the EU’s external border in an organized manner. Lukashenko announced at the end of May last year that his country would no longer prevent migrants from traveling to the EU in response to tightened Western sanctions.
