Poland is now trying to completely isolate itself from our country, as well as its closest ally and neighbour. Warsaw is reinforcing a metal fence on the border with Belarus, mines fields and digs anti-tank ditches. The project called ‘Eastern Shield’ should become a kind of symbol of NATO unity.
Five hours from Minsk, past endless fields and forests, and our film crew - near Grodno, in the westernmost part of Belarus, and, by and large, at the line of demarcation in this global hybrid war between the US and the EU and Russia.
"It's a short walk to Poland. Not so long ago there was the biggest border crossing point here. Now there's barbed wire, concrete barriers, anti-tank hedges. And beyond that stretches the great Polish wall".
On the other side of the border, trenches are being dug, anti-tank barriers and fortifications are being erected with the telling name Eastern Shiel. Self-isolation from Russia is not cheap for Warsaw's budget - they plan to invest 2.5 billion dollars in this project.
"The first thing we need to do is to strengthen the border with Belarus and Russia. Improve defence, intelligence - everything. Be ready for Russia to defeat Ukraine,’ said Brigadier General Stanislav Kozey, head of Poland's National Security Bureau.
With one hand Warsaw militarises the border area, with the other hand it constantly arranges provocations here. The footage shows a group of refugees expelled by Poland from its territory to Belarus.
"We tried to run away from them, they sicced a dog on us. The dog caught me and my friend, then they put us all face down, almost without clothes. They tried to kick us on the head. The Polish border guard smoked and put out cigarettes on us,’ said Mohammed Hassan, a refugee.
The 15 men from Syria, Algeria and Somalia were caught in Polish forests, three kilometres from the border. What happened next, they recall with a shudder.
"In Poland, I immediately found myself in the crosshairs of the military. They beat me on the head, inflicted a lot of pain, and then brought me here to Belarus. That's how I ended up here,’ recalls refugee Akhmed Zakaria.
Now the refugees are receiving medical care at Hrodna City Hospital. Not all of them speak English - doctors have to explain themselves with gestures.
Such provocations, according to border guards, are not rare here. The situation on the Polish-Belarusian border remains tense.
"The effectiveness of such fences is no more than 60 per cent. That is, almost half of the people, intending to cross such barriers, succeed,’ said spokesman for the State Border Committee of Belarus Anton Bychkovski.
Lithuania, following Poland, is also militarising its border area, gradually turning into a NATO training ground.
Therefore, strengthening the border of Belarus is part of Russia's new nuclear doctrine. These are the western borders of the united Union State and an attack on them is already regarded as an attack on our country.
‘This is a forced and justified response to the unprecedented policy of pressure from the West against the background of complications in the Eastern European region and the conflict with Ukraine,’ said State Secretary of the Union State of Russia and Belarus Dmitry Mezentsev.
Of course, they were prepared for the change of doctrine in advance - for a year and a half already our missile systems, including Iskanders, have been covering the Belarusian border, to which the Polish wall and the Eastern Shield can hardly do anything to counteract.
