Czech Troops To Be Deployed In Poland To Guard Belarusian Border

[left-of-center2012]

Source: Radio Free Europe

The Czech government has approved the deployment of up to 150 soldiers to help Poland stop migrants entering from Belarus, amid on ongoing crisis on the European Union's eastern flank that the West has accused Minsk of orchestrating.

According to the plan, subject to approval by both chambers of the Czech parliament, the troops will have a mandate to stay in Poland for 180 days, Defense Minister Lubomir Metnar tweeted on December 8. If the plan is adopted, as expected, the Czechs would join similar numbers of troops deployed in Poland by fellow NATO members Estonia and Britain.

Belarus is engaged in a bitter diplomatic standoff with the West over authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka's crackdown on dissent since a disputed presidential election last year, and what the EU has called his "weaponization" of mainly Middle Eastern migrants to create a crisis on Belarus's border with Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania.

Minsk denies EU accusations it engineered the crisis to destabilize the entire 27-member bloc in retaliation for sanctions imposed for human rights abuses. The EU has passed sanctions on Lukashenka's regime over its brutal crackdown on the country's pro-democracy movement in the wake of the disputed August 2020 election. Last week, the bloc imposed a fifth round of sanctions aimed at individuals and entities thought to be responsible for participating in the "hybrid attack" on the EU using migrants.

Read more: https://www.rferl.org/a/czech-soldiers-belarus-border/31600194.html

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[OnDoutside]

1. The EU and the US need to stop screwing around and hit these

Tinpot dictatorships with Draconian economic sanctions....if they don't do it now, it'll all eventually end in military action.

Of course the EU fucked up royally by becoming dependent on Russian gas.

[left-of-center2012]

2. Agree 110%

[captain queeg]

3. It feels a little like the run up to WWII

The memories of how horrible WWI (the war to end all wars) a lot of people just couldn’t imagine anyone starting another major war. But people soon forget apparently. I hope it doesn’t happen, but it’s not impossible. I think if a “small” war breaks out in Europe it could easily spread as with WWI. The second would war could be seen as an extension of that war, but I think it developed much differently with Germany being the aggressor. They screwed around for awhile but then the gates opened.

[OneCrazyDiamond]

4. Me too.

[Sapient Donkey]

5. Is this a symbolic thing, or is an actually need for these 150 troops?

[left-of-center2012]

6. Maybe symbolic in a way

But both Poland and the Czech Republic are members of NATO so any attack on them would be an attack on NATO.