Poland border with Belarus: Estonia and Great Britain send troops

Estonia and Great Britain send troops to Poland to provide assistance during the crisis on the Belarusian border. President Merkel said the situation was “worrying” and that the UN He promised to support the refugee organization.

Estonia is helping Poland deal with the crisis on the EU’s eastern border with Belarus. The Baltic EU will send about 100 members of its armed forces to Warsaw at the request of the government. Among them are pioneers and military police, Estonian Defense Minister Colla Lonet Tallinn said. Therefore, the divisions include regular soldiers, security guards and compulsors.

Planned to use drones

According to an Estonian military spokesman, an advance unit is due to leave for Poland over the weekend, and key units are due next week. Estonia will also help Poland develop intelligence skills. According to the Estonian media, drones will also be used for this purpose.

According to Laneets, Poland sought help from the Taliban government on Monday evening. “Previously they only wanted political support, but now they need practical help. As far as I know, only Great Britain has so far provided practical support to Poland,” said the Baltic EU and NATO defense minister.

The British should help with border security

The British government also announced that it would send troops to Poland. British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told the BBC they would send pioneers to provide technical support.

About 100 soldiers were said to have been stopped from Defense Ministry circles in London. The details of this action have not yet been determined and approved by Parliament.

After a meeting with Wallace on Thursday, Polish Defense Minister Marius Blaszczyk said that Great Britain had already proposed in October that a company of engineers could support Polish security forces on the Belarus border. “The British intelligence team went to Poland on November 11, talked to our soldiers and visited the border,” Blaszczyk said.

As Blaszczak further announced, the British soldiers were mainly to repair the border forts, but also to take care of the access roads along the border.

The camps on the border are empty

According to Poland, the camps for migrants on the Polish-Belarusian border have now been evacuated. Anna Mikelska, a spokeswoman for the Polish border guards, confirmed information from Belarus the previous day that no migrants or refugees would be camped on the Belarusian side of the EU’s outer border today. However, border crossing efforts continue.

Michalska said yesterday that about 50 immigrants had entered Poland through the border fence, including a family of five who said they wanted to stay in Poland. Admission procedure for them has been started. Others want to return to Belarus.

A group of about 500 people from the Belarusian side hurled stones at Polish officials and fired tear gas. At the same time, “Belarusian authorities” tried to blind their Polish colleagues with lasers.

“The Belarusian side is providing tear gas to the immigrants,” the spokesman said. Four Polish soldiers were injured, but were not admitted to hospital. The detainees have been asked to “leave Poland”, according to a spokesman. In all, border guards recorded 255 attempts to cross the border on Thursday.

During his meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in Berlin, President Angela Merkel described the situation as “worrying”. Merkel said she needed “a discussion” before withdrawing from talks with Stoltenberg, considering the deployment of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border and the refugee crisis on the Belarusian border with Poland, Latvia and Lithuania.

Stoltenberg condemned the Belarusian leadership’s use of “innocent people” for its “inhumane” behavior.

Merkel pledges UNHCR support

Merkel pledged support to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Belarus. The German government announced that Merkel had spoken with UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grande, High and Director General of the IOM Antonio Vitorino on the situation of migrants in Belarus.

Thousands of refugees from the Middle East have been stranded for weeks on the EU’s outer border with Belarus, especially Poland. The European Union (EU) has accused Lukashenko of deliberately smuggling refugees into the border to put pressure on the EU. Tensions on the border have been high recently. Poland has fenced off the border and deployed more than 15,000 security guards.

The number of unauthorized registrations has risen sharply

The Federal Police have released new statistics on unauthorized registrations in connection with Belarus. Accordingly, their number was over 2000 in the first half of November alone.

By 2021, there are currently 9861 unauthorized entries. From January to July, the Federal Police found only a total of 26 unauthorized persons associated with Belarus entering the country without permission.