Poland’s MoD: Belarusian soldier attempted to shoot flare gun at Polish border guards
A controversial incident took place at the border due to the Belarusian side’s staging another provocation, Poland’s Defence Ministry reported on Friday morning.
According to the Polish Ministry of Defense, on November 4, a Belarusian serviceman attempted to shoot a flare gun at Polish border guards. However, the weapon dfailed to fire.
At 100 metres from the above mentioned soldier, there were another five armed Belarusian servicemen who were trying to destroy the border fence; they threatened to shoot down the Poles, the MoD said. When Polish reinforcements arrived at the scene, the Belarusians reportedly retreated.
The situation on the Belarusian-Polish border has been tense for a long time. Two days ago, three unindentified uniformed persons carrying long guns entered the territory of Poland from the Belarusian side. Warsaw filed a protest note over the armed men’s intrusion; in turn, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry responded that the Poles were ‘fuelling the tensions’, because the Belarusian side ‘had never provoked them’.
In May this year, Alyaksandr Lukashenka said he would no longer hold back the flow of refugees from the East heading to EU countries. After this statement, the number of migrants trying to enter the EU from the territory of Belarus increased sharply. First, dozens and then hundreds of migrants were stopped daily by Lithuanian border guards. Then refugees headed for Latvia and Poland. Within a few months of the migration crisis, nine people died. Poland and Lithuania are building barbed wire fences on the border with Belarus.
The Polish side repeatedly reported that the Belarusian military had been aiming at the Polish border guards. They also found ‘objects imitating bombs’ at the Polish-Belarusian border. On October 8, a patrol of Polish servicemen was fired at from the Belarusian side of the border; blanks were probably used.
In October alone, the Polish Border Service recorded almost 17.3 thousand attempts to illegally cross the Belarusian-Polish border. In September, there were about 7.5 thousand of such attempts, and more than 3.5 thousand in August.
