The works, which will begin in 2024 and will complete the more than 200 kilometer barrier that extends along the border with Belarus, will include 5,500 surveillance cameras.
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Poland will complete the construction of border walls on the country’s borders with Russia and Belarus, the country’s border authorities announced today.
Border Guard spokesperson Anna Michalska confirmed in Warsaw that construction of the border wall with Belarus will soon resume in the Bug River area, an area that, due to difficult terrain conditions, was not included in the barrier recently. finished.
According to Michalska, contractors will be selected before the end of the year to carry out these works, which will begin in 2024 and will complete the more than 200 kilometer barrier that extends along the border with Belarus.
Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski said Wednesday in an interview with state television TVP that 5,500 surveillance cameras will be installed, some of which have night vision capabilities, as well as motion detectors.so that not even a mouse can enter“.
Kaminski further announced that “Between the end of September and October, the construction of the electronic barrier on the border with Russia will be completed“, a project that will cost around 85 million euros.
In April, construction of a barrier with three rows of wire fences began, 3,000 surveillance cameras and around 200 kilometers of detection cables that will protect the approximately 210 kilometers of the land border perimeter with the Russian province of Kaliningrad.
Warsaw has repeatedly expressed fears that Moscow could trigger a migrant crisis. against Poland from Kaliningrad, similar to the one experienced until a few months ago, with Belarus.
The Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, on the shores of the Baltic Sea, It constitutes the only land border between Russia and Poland and has great strategic importance.
In addition, the Polish Government hopes to complete by the end of this year the expansion of a 1,300-meter-long canal to connect the Polish port of Elblag (north) with the open waters of the Baltic, thus avoiding its ships having to use the canal. …built by the Russians in front of Kaliningrad.
On the other hand, the In May, the Polish government established official use of the Polish name Królewiec. to refer to the region until now known by the Russian name of Kaliningrad.
The project to build the wall with Belarus raised concerns among human rights and environmental activists in late 2021 and early last year. The first because they fear that migrants fleeing conflict situations will not be able to request asylum and the second because of the harmful effects on the fauna and flora of the forest area on the border.
The European Union supported Poland and harshly criticized Belarus.
For his part, the The Polish government rejected Brussels’ proposal to involve the European agency Frontex in border surveillance and passed a law allowing illegal immigrants to be returned without waiting for them to apply for asylum.
The decision was made after thousands of migrants, mostly from the Middle East, crossed or attempted to cross the border from Belarus into Poland in the summer of 2021, in a move that the European Union accused Minsk of promoting.
Belarus accuses Poland of human rights violations by denying the entry of immigrants into its territory.
Source: Observadora