Poland credits border barrier for migration respite as neighbors struggle under pressure

April 27, Pozirk. Polish Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński told a conference of border security officials that the country’s fence and surveillance system prevented any successful illegal crossings in the first quarter of the year.

One “successful breakthrough of our barrier system” was reported in April, “but the man was identified and returned” to Belarus, Kierwiński said, according to rmf24.pl.

However, Poland’s recent respite may be linked less to the barrier’s effectiveness than to political dynamics involving Minsk, which appears capable of redirecting migration pressure across the region.

This year, Poland has reported just 172 attempts by third-country nationals to enter from Belarus outside official checkpoints—a sharp decrease from the 5,568 attempts recorded during the same period last year.

At the same time, Lithuania registered as many as 50 attempts on April 26 alone and 615 incidents since the beginning of the year.

Giedrius Mišutis, a spokesman for the Lithuanian State Border Guard Service, said his country is dealing with “organized migration” carried out with the involvement of Belarusian services, Delfi reported. He added that the pressure would persist as long as it served the interests of the Belarusian side—an indication that flows are not spontaneous but can be actively managed.

“Developments show that there are many illegal migrants in Belarus,” he said.

Latvia reported 26 attempted irregular crossings on April 26, bringing the total since January to 1,791, including 1,476 recorded in April alone.

Poland recorded a sharp decline in irregular migration after reopening the Kuźnica Białostocka–Bruzhi and Bobrowniki–Bierastavica crossings to traffic on November 17, in a move hailed by Minsk as “constructive.” Minsk described the decision as the beginning of a process toward restoring contacts.

The Bobrowniki crossing had been closed since February 2023. Warsaw had initially conditioned its reopening on the release of Polish journalist and minority activist Andrzej Poczobut, who had been sentenced in Belarus to eight years in prison in a case widely regarded as politically motivated. He remains behind bars.

The simultaneous drop in crossings at the Polish border and surge along the Lithuanian and Latvian frontiers underscores a broader pattern: migration pressure appears to shift geographically in ways consistent with Belarusian state control, suggesting Minsk retains the capacity to channel migrant routes toward specific borders.

The flow of people attempting to cross into the EU surged in spring 2021 after Alaksandar Łukašenka, angered by EU sanctions, signaled that Minsk would no longer prevent asylum seekers from Africa and Asia from using Belarus as a transit route into the bloc.

In June 2021, the Belarusian government suspended a readmission agreement with the EU in response to sanctions imposed after the forced landing of a Ryanair flight in Minsk.

Latvia and Lithuania describe the migration crisis as a “hybrid attack” orchestrated by Minsk and Moscow.

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Lithuania sees six-month daily high in irregular crossings via Belarus

April 27, Pozirk. Lithuania did not allow at least 50 undocumented third-country foreigners to cross irregularly via Belarus yesterday, with attempts at a record high for the past 177 days, according to Pozirk’s analysis of border guards’ data.   Lithuania …

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