FLASH
Shkruar nga Marco Bresolin
Warsaw intends to become even more serious in its preparations, so it has set aside 2.5 billion euros to build the "Eastern Shield", with which it intends to armor 600 kilometers on its eastern and northern border, to protect itself from a possible Russian invasion.
The first bulldozers started work at the end of October 2024. They are digging anti-tank ditches, preparing the ground to install new physical barriers, ammunition depots, military bunkers, and shelters for citizens.
But not only that: the program just launched by the Polish government plans, in addition to the most advanced anti-drone systems, to also build trenches, and potentially minefields, in the first 200 meters near the border with Belarus and in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.
" We must be ready to repel accidental or deliberate attacks by our enemies!" warns General Stanislaw Czosnek, deputy chief of staff of the Polish army, as he shows me the main points of the project.
Warsaw intends to become even more serious in its preparations, so it has set aside 2.5 billion euros to build the "Eastern Shield", with which it intends to armor 600 kilometers on its eastern and northern border, to protect itself from a possible Russian invasion.
The project will be completed in 2028, and will represent the largest military fortification ever built since World War II. Prime Minister Donald Tusk explained that military spending this year will reach a record threshold of 4.7 percent of GDP, the highest among NATO countries.
For this reason, it aims to put pressure on its NATO allies, who are still far from the agreed norm of 2 percent of GDP. At the border crossing between the Polish post of Polowce and the Belarusian one of Peschatka, the crossing is blocked.
Until June 1, 2023, it was possible to travel along Route 66, but now there is a buffer zone between the 2 borders, and the Warsaw army keeps the territory of the “enemy” country under surveillance, with 3 rows of concrete tetrapods, a large amount of barbed wire, and then with 3 rows of obstacles that will soon become present on all Polish borders.
Further along is the 5-meter-high metal fence stretching for 186 kilometers, erected in 2022 to prevent the arrival of migrants "whom Belarus uses as a weapon against us," Maciej Duszczyk, deputy minister of the interior and responsible for migration issues, repeatedly repeats as he sinks his boots into the mud.
But Colonel Mariusz Ochalski, from the engineering unit, assures that the Eastern Shield project goes beyond the need to slow down what they define as the “artificial migration route.” The objective is undoubtedly more ambitious: “We must respond to threats and be ready to stop Russian tanks.
"Thanks to the interventions made, they cannot cross here, and now we have to do the same at other border points."
He says this, happily pointing out the concrete tetrapods and barbed wire “that protect not only Poland, but the entire European Union.” On the other side of the barbed wire there is no trace of the Belarusian army, and the old border crossing looks like an abandoned kiosk on a toll highway.
Is Poland overreacting with this alarmism? I don't even have time to finish the question and the colonel's answer is quick: "No!". The measures envisaged by the "Eastern Shield" project will be implemented depending on the distance from the border and the security zone: red (up to 15 km), yellow (up to 50 km) and green (up to 100 km).
However, the fortification will not be homogeneous along the entire border, but will be adapted to the characteristics of the territory. "Natural barriers, such as rivers and forests, will be used and possibly strengthened," the project specifies, which will also affect areas that are currently private.
There will be no expropriations, but the land will be purchased as an investment. About 50 kilometers north of the Polowce post lies the vast, virgin Bialowieza Forest, which welcomes many visitors due to its 12,000-year history and classification as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
It stretches across Poland and Belarus, but with the construction of a barrier against illegal immigrants, the forest has been split in two. As environmental groups report, the cost has not only been borne by the centuries-old trees, but also by the forest's famous bison, which can no longer move freely as before.
Across the border in Belarus, migrants coming from Syria, Afghanistan, but recently especially from Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia (the top 3 nationalities registered in 2024) continue to remain stranded. “They land in Minsk by plane, often with a Russian visa in their pocket, and then are sent to the border through an organized system,” explains Arkadiusz Skutnik, commander of the Polish army and head of the task force assisting the border guards.
Last year, nearly 30,000 people attempted to cross the border illegally, the highest number in three years. But fewer than 11,000 irregular entries were recorded in Poland.
According to the latest report by Human Rights Watch, in the first 8 months of 2024 alone, there were around 10,000 illegal deportations. “Everything is done according to the law,” replies Colonel Andrzej Stasiule Wacz, deputy commander of the Border Guard, “and these are not illegal refusals, as those people were stopped at the border.”/ Adapted from “Pamphlet” by “La Stampa”
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