Controversy after Polish soldiers charged for firing warning shots at migrants crossing Belarus border
Politicians from both the government and opposition have reacted angrily after news emerged that three soldiers were detained by military police for firing warning shots at a group of migrants trying to force their way across the border from Belarus. Two of the soldiers have since been charged by prosecutors.
The border has recently seen a surge not only in the number of migrants and asylum seekers trying to cross, but also in aggression towards Polish officers. In some cases, soldiers and border guards have been hospitalised with injuries following attacks.
Yesterday, Onet, a leading news website, reported that in one case from around the turn of March and April, three soldiers were detained after firing warning shots into the air and ground around a group of 50 people – made up of men aged 20-30 – who had forced their way onto the Polish side of the border.
Polscy żołnierze zakuci w kajdanki na białoruskiej granicy. W wojsku wrze https://t.co/QXmiEADJH2
— Onet Wiadomości (@OnetWiadomosci) June 5, 2024
Two of the three soldiers have reportedly been charged with exceeding their powers and endangering the lives of others. They were also suspended from duty. The actions of the authorities have reportedly caused anger and frustration within the military.
In response to Onet’s report, defence minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz issued a statement on Wednesday night saying that the situation was “unacceptable” and needed “to be fully explained”.
“Soldiers guarding state security must be sure that legal procedures protect them,” wrote the minister. “I will always stand on the side of the honour of Polish soldiers.”
Zatrzymanie żołnierzy oddających strzały alarmowe w kierunku atakujących migrantów jest nie do przyjęcia. Działania Żandarmerii Wojskowej wobec zatrzymanych zostaną bezwzględnie wyjaśnione. Żołnierze stojący na straży bezpieczeństwa państwa muszą być pewni, że procedury prawne…
— Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz (@KosiniakKamysz) June 5, 2024
Kosiniak-Kamysz’s predecessor as defence minister, Mariusz Błaszczak, who is now the head of the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party’s parliamentary caucus, also condemned the news as an “absolute scandal”.
“The Polish state has an obligation to stand behind border defenders. Soldiers cannot be exposed to physical attacks from migrants on the one hand and to legal consequences from Bodnar’s prosecutor’s office on the other,” wrote Błaszczak, referring to current justice minister and prosecutor general Adam Bodnar.
Błaszczak also rejected the idea that Kosiniak-Kamysz had only now learned of the incident. The defence ministry gets regular reports on the situation at the border and “Kosiniak-Kamysz MUST have known about the detention of the soldiers”, wrote Błaszczak. “The truth was hidden for about two months.”
Na biurko szefa MON regularnie powinny trafiać raporty o sytuacji na granicy polsko-białoruskiej przygotowywane przez Ośrodek Monitorowania i Analiz MON. Ministrowie Kosiniak-Kamysz i Tomczyk MUSIELI wiedzieć o zatrzymaniu żołnierzy. Prawda o tym zdarzeniu była ukrywana przez…
— Mariusz Błaszczak (@mblaszczak) June 6, 2024
Sebastian Kaleta, who served as a deputy justice minister in the former PiS government, also suggested that perhaps recent incidents of physical attacks on soldiers have happened because “they are prohibited from defending themselves or because they are afraid [of prosecution]”.
Sławomir Mentzen, one of the leaders of the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja), another opposition party, accused the “government of caring more about illegal immigrants storming our borders on Putin’s orders than about Polish soldiers!”
However, figures from the current ruling coalition – including MPs Roman Giertych and Sławomir Ćwik – also criticised the actions of the prosecutors who have reportedly brought charges against the soldiers.
Żandarmeria Wojskowa zatrzymała trzech żołnierzy pełniących służbę na granicy za to, że oddali strzały ostrzegawcze podczas szturmu imigrantów.
Rząd Tuska bardziej dba o nielegalnych imigrantów szturmujących nasze granice na polecenie Putina, niż o polskich żołnierzy!
— Sławomir Mentzen (@SlawomirMentzen) June 5, 2024
Meanwhile, Jacek Siewiera, the head of President Andrzej Duda’s National Security Bureau, said that it is a “shocking and scandalous situation when the Polish army lacks proper tools in the face of an external threat to state security”.
Siewiera noted that Duda had last year proposed legislation setting out new conditions for the use of weapons by the army when faced with “hybrid threats”. He appealed for all political forces to now support that bill, reported news website Interia.
Last week, in response to a rise in attempted border crossings by migrants and attacks on Polish officers, the government announced that it would reintroduce an exclusion zone banning people from approaching the Polish side of the border.
Those measures were initially planned to go into place on Tuesday this week but, so far, have not been implemented. Meanwhile, this week has seen further attacks on officers at the border, including one who was hospitalised on Monday with serious injuries.
Amid a worsening crisis at the Belarus border, Polish foreign minister @sikorskiradek says that, as a former refugee, he sympathises with migrants
But he adds that Poland must defend its border from Russia and Belarus’ use of migrants in a „hybrid attack” https://t.co/0py17HBI1j
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) June 4, 2024
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Main image credit: MON (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
