Poland has reopened two major border crossings shut ahead of Russian-Belarusian Zapad military exercises.
The two crossings, Terespol and Kukuryki, resumed operations just after midnight today, two weeks after closing. Long lines of cars and lorries queued ahead of the reopening and freight rail traffic also restarted along the European Union-China corridor via Małaszewicze.
The Polish Government shut all road crossings with Belarus on September 12 “until further notice” before the start of the Zapad military exercises. Poland saw those as a potential threat to the Suwałki Gap, the stretch of land that separates the Russian enclave Kaliningrad from Belarus.
The Polish authorities’ decision to shut that border had been taken before the Russian drone incursion into Polish airspace on September 11. Some commentators saw that move as a form of retaliation against the frontier closure, which was protested by both Russia and Belarus.
The Polish decision was taken despite the fact that US observers attended the Zapad military exercises and that the numbers of troops involved in the exercises was lower than in the equivalent manoeuvres in the past.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk revealed on September 23 that his government had decided to reopen the border but warned a shutdown could return at any time.
“If the need arises, if tensions increase or if our neighbours behave aggressively, we will not hesitate to close the crossings again,” Tusk said.
Despite the two reopenings, another four crossings in Sławatycze, Połowce, Bobrowniki and Kuźnica, remain closed “indefinitely”. That was due to the migration crisis that has seen Belarus facilitating illegal migrant crossings into Poland and the Polish authorities constructing a border fence and other fortifications at the frontier.
Prior to the restart of operations, more than 100 Polish lorries were reported to have been trapped waiting on the Belarusian border and on the Polish side of the border. Numerous Belarusians were suffering the same fate.
The mayor of border town Terespol, Krzysztof Iwaniuk, expressed relief the border was reopening but also anger at the way the closure had occurred. He said he only learned about it when “I saw the interior minister Marcin Kierwiński on television”.
“We are not at war with either Belarus or Russia, so this is wrong,” he said.
Iwaniuk also revealed that he had been visited by Chinese rail officials concerned about the fact that 15 of their trains were blocked at the border. He said they had complained that “they had received no information from Polish ministries they tried to contact”.
Affected businesses are now demanding compensation for losses caused by the border closure. The government has thus far only collected information and held a working meeting with representatives of the road haulage industry.
The shutdown also affected wider international trade as the rail crossing between Poland and Belarus is one of the main routes used by China to transport goods into the EU.
According to the Sobieski Institute think-tank expert Radosław Pyffel, Poland had wanted to “demonstrate leverage” to persuade both Belarus and China to stabilise the border. He added, though, that he felt this could backfire on Poland.
“We’ll see how this is received by world powers in the coming weeks, perhaps years. Some have already threatened to build new infrastructure connections to bypass Poland,” he told commercial radio broadcaster RMF FM.
