Fearing New Hybrid War Front, Poland to Build Wall on Kaliningrad Border

The Polish government says it will build a security wall on its border with the Russian exclave, to avoid a repeat of the migration crisis fomented by the Lukashenko regime on its border with Belarus.

Polish soldiers patrol along the Polish-Belarusian border near Czeremcha, north-eastern Poland, 13 December 2021. EPA-EFE/Marcin Obara

Poland will build a wall on its border with Kaliningrad in light of last month’s news that the airport in the Russian exclave is allowing flights from the Middle East and Africa, Polish Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak announced on Wednesday.

The move by the Russian aviation authorities to liberalise air traffic with Kaliningrad has sparked fears in Poland that Russia is preparing to open up a new route into the EU for migrants tempted to the exclave by the Kremlin to be used as pawns in a hybrid war against the West, in the same way the regime of Belarusian dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko has done since last year.

The new wall on the border with Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave located between Lithuania and Poland, is set to be two metres tall and three metres wide, made up of three layers of barbed wire, and cover the entire 200-kilometre length of Poland’s border with the exclave, Blaszczak said.

“We want to ensure that the border is airtight,” Blaszczak explained. “Because the airport in Kaliningrad was opened for flights from the Middle East and Africa, I decided to take actions which will increase security on the Polish-Russian border.”

The Polish defence minister was referring to the reported statement from the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency on September 30 that said, following an appeal from the governor of the Kaliningrad region, the Kharbrovo airport in Kaliningrad would enter a so-called “open skies” mode for a period of two years from October 1.

“This mode allows foreign airlines to operate flights to/from Kaliningrad using the third, fourth, fifth and seventh freedom of airspace,” the statement from the Federal Air Transport Agency said, according to Russian news agency TASS.

This seventh freedom of airspace allows national carriers, for example, to transport passengers between a third country and Kaliningrad, without the need for the flight to be connected to the home state of the carrier – establishing a de facto foreign hub. Hypothetically, Belavia, the Belarusian national carrier, could henceforth bring into Kaliningrad passengers from the Middle East and Africa without any restrictions.

Since the summer of 2021, tens of thousands of migrants, mainly from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Africa, have tried to enter the EU by irregular crossings of the Belarusian-Polish and Belarusian-Lithuanian borders. The migrants were drawn to Belarus by the authorities, bussed to the country’s EU borders and then herded across, often violently, as a means to destablise the EU in retaliation for sanctions imposed on Minsk for the rigged presidential election in the autumn of 2020 and subsequent violent crackdown on protestors.

The policy was widely regarded to have been formulated in connivance with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, who analysts say could be now looking for a new way to punish the West for its support of Kyiv in his failing war with Ukraine.

Tens of migrants are still currently trying to enter Poland daily, according to the Polish Border Guard, despite the construction of a 5.5-metre wall on the relevant section of its border with Belarus.