June 7, Pozirk. Warsaw has demanded that Minsk surrender the man who killed a Polish soldier in a border accident.
The Polish foreign ministry said it has handed a note of protest to Belarusian Chargé d’Affaires Alaksiej Pankracienka.
The soldier died in hospital on June 6, ten days after he was stabbed in the line of duty as a large group of third-country nationals tried to cross from Belarus into Poland.
Warsaw has urged Minsk to “stop provocations” and “migration pressure.”
The Belarusian State Border Committee said it was ready to investigate the incident if Poland provides information on the circumstances. So far, the Belarusian border authority has not received any “substantive initial data.”
Someone who stabs a representative of the Polish state through the border fence is not a refugee but a criminal, wiadomosci.radiozet.pl reported, citing Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski.
It was a purposeful act by thugs who acted on instructions from Belarus, he added.
Days after the knife attack, Belarusian opposition politician Pavieł Łatuška told PAP that it was part of a joint operation by Russia and Belarus against Poland.
Earlier this year, dozens of fighters from Afghanistan were trained at a special border guards’ base in Belarus to infiltrate the European Union, he said.
Illegal border crossings between Belarus and Poland have soared since February, reaching record highs in May.
Over the past few weeks, Polish border guards reported several physical attacks by aggressive people from the Belarusian side.
Warsaw responded by stepping up border security. However, Łatuška said it was not doing enough.
Poland and Lithuania should close the railway border crossings to crush Alaksandar Łukašenka economically, he said at a meeting with local Belarusians in Lublin.
In August 2023, the interior ministers of Poland and the Baltic States warned Minsk that they would close the border with Belarus in response to a surge in illegal migration.
But Łatuška said European politicians lack the political will to tighten sanctions, expressing hope that Warsaw will take a tougher stance “based on law.”
