Polish authorities announced plans to tighten security along Poland's border with Belarus on Thursday.
Poland's Minister of National Defense Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz announced plans on Thursday to strengthen his country's border with Belarus, which is lined by a metal fence.
Although the border barriers have helped to significantly reduce the number of irregular entries into Polish territory, Kosiniak-Kamysz said some migrants still manage to evade these measures and cross into the EU state.
Poland's border with Belarus and Russia is considered the eastern frontier of NATO and the EU.
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New trenches for a new 'cold war'
Kosiniak-Kamysz also floated the idea of building defensive bunkers and trenches along Poland's eastern border.
The Baltic states -- Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania -- have already built similar structures along their borders with Belarus and Russia, respectively.
These steps came in response to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which began in February 2022.
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Using migrants to weaken the West
The EU, a staunch ally of Ukraine, has already seen as many as 7 million war refugees enter its territory since the 2022 Russian invasion.
Meanwhile, non-Ukrainian migrants have been crossing the Polish-Belarusian border in relatively large numbers over the course of the past two years. Most of them come from the Middle East -- Iraq in particular. The EU accuses Belarus of deliberately flying these migrants into the capital Minsk and dropping them off at the border.
Belarus is Europe's last remaining authoritarian regime. Its Russia-backed, strongman head Aleksandr Lukashenko has led the state since 1994.
Some worry Russia's alleged attempts at further weakening the EU's external borders amid this major rise in refugee arrivals could result in an increase of xenophobic sentiment, as the EU is about to hold elections.
Defense Minister Kosiniak-Kamysz suggested in this context that strengthening Poland's borders is therefore part of wider defense measure in response to Russia's war with Ukraine, which also borders Poland to the south.
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