Poland will deploy 2,000 military personnel to strengthen the border with Belarus in order to prevent illegal border crossings, doubling the number requested by the Border Guard Service.
Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Maciej WÄ…sik announced this to the state news agency PAP on Wednesday.
"This reinforcement will be not 1,000, but 2,000 soldiers. This decision was made by the Security Committee, this decision was made by Minister of Defense Mariusz Blaszczak," he told the agency.
According to the deputy minister, the military will reach the border within the next two weeks. As he explained, they will operate in both the Podlaskie and Lublin Voivodeships.
On Monday, WÄ…sik revealed that the Border Guard Service had requested an additional thousand military personnel.
He noted that currently, all attempts of illegal migration into Poland are orchestrated by the Belarusian authorities.
"If we had genuine border guards on the other side, rather than smuggling services, there would be no such (illegal) crossings at all," he said.
Currently, the Border Guard Service is supported by around 2,000 military personnel in their operations along the Polish-Belarusian border.
