Poland lays razor wire on border with Russia's Kaliningrad

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: AP

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish soldiers began laying razor wire Wednesday along Poland’s border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad after the government ordered the construction of a barrier to prevent what it fears could become another migration crisis.

Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said a recent decision by Russia’s aviation authority to launch flights from the Middle East and North Africa to Kaliningrad led him to reinforce Poland’s 210-kilometer (130-mile) border with Kaliningrad. “Due to the disturbing information regarding the launch of flights from the Middle East and North Africa to Kaliningrad, I have decided to take measures that will strengthen the security on the Polish border with the Kaliningrad oblast by sealing this border,” Blaszczak said.

Blaszczak said the barrier along the border would be made of three rows of razor wire measuring 2½ meters (eight feet) high and 3 meters (10 feet) wide and feature an electronic monitoring system and cameras. The Polish side also will have a fence to keep animals away from the razor wire. Before now, the sparsely inhabited border area was patrolled but had no physical barrier.

To the south, Poland’s border with Belarus became the site of a major migration crisis last year, with large numbers of people from the Middle East entering illegally. Polish and other EU leaders accused the Belarusian government — an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin — of masterminding the migration to create chaos and division within the 27-nation bloc.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/europe-business-poland-migration-warsaw-403b1effe2518ee9e9a2415b9bfddc57

[oldsoftie]

1. RU is going to try to flood neighboring countries with migrants now.

More of the same; using civilians as weapons.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. Sounds familiar

[IronLionZion]

3. GOP US governors like to do that too

[BumRushDaShow]

4. Bingo.

[SheltieLover]

5. Kicking for visibility

[blue-wave]

6. Another planned refugee crisis from Pooty? It appears to be a

another desperate attempt to destabilize countries supporting Ukraine. It's a relatively weak attempt, showing us the desperate situation the Kremlin finds itself in to turn things around in Ukraine.

It won't work Pooty. Withdraw all military operations from Ukraine, pre-2014 borders. Only then will it get better.

[dutch777]

7. At what point do the humanitarian issues of this conflict give us impetus to get more involved?

As a veteran, I appreciate the aversion to us going "hot" in this war. And I understand the EU has gotten itself into a no win situation with dependence on Russian oil and gas and being on the front line (or at least down wind if a nuke goes off) if something else breaks bad. And I know they have taken in millions of refugees from Ukraine. But this is clearly a humanitarian slippery slope with needed grain supplies disrupted, key infrastructure destruction and the other direct effects of conflict on the Ukranian people, threats of all kinds to bordering EU countries, global economic and other destabilizing impacts and on and on. Seems that the costs of not doing more go up daily and the endless drama is sapping international focus from many other substantive issues. I also think letting Putin run unchecked emboldens other right wing and autocratic nations to consider mischief. At some point with a festering wound, the pain of cauterizing it outweighs the increasing risks of leaving it alone and hoping for the best.

[oldsoftie]

8. Putin is hanging on betting that the West will tire of the sacrifices.

This generation would've never won WW2.

[PSPS]

11. Ain't it the truth? We'd all be speaking German today.

[Lonestarblue]

10. I agree. Putin will not leave Ukraine until he is forced out.

NATO could accelerate that schedule if they provided air support for Ukraine to shoot down more missiles. Israel refused to support Ukraine by providing the Iron Dome to them because Russian ally Syria allows them to fly over its air space. The West is helping, but it is not helping end the war. It’s actually prolonging it by not doing all it can, much to the detriment of the Ukrainian people.

[oldsoftie]

12. I find it hard to believe we don't have some NCOs in EU piloting some drones

With UKR flags on them
Maybe we DO.

[James48]

14. More likely

Is that the NCO’s who got out over the last five years are now wearing civilian clothes, sitting in Lockheed Martin built contractor operated vans with headsets and joysticks, and getting six-figure salaries, as subcontractor to the subcontractor employees.

There is more money to be made that way.

[oldsoftie]

16. I guess that would give "plausible deniability".

I hope we're doing a lot more than what's reported. I'm sure the neighboring countries are; they all speak the languages & they're RIGHT THERE.
I just wish the Congress would pass a massive bill that provides funding for UKR for the next two years before Jan arrives. Because a GOP House may very well NOT want to fund them

[Irish_Dem]

9. Putin creates chaos and division in western democracies.

This makes it easy for him to gain control in these countries by installing his puppets to take care of the crises he manufactures.

The GOP does the same thing here.

[calimary]

13. I was just thinking that, reading the title of your post.

Then I read the rest of your post and had my initial suspicion confirmed.

[Irish_Dem]

15. The GOP/Trump did it on 1/6. Created violent chaos to stop opponent's win from being official.

And to declare martial law.

Complete power grab.

We know many of the elected GOP officials were in on the insurrection, so this was not
just Trump's plan.

It is right out of the KGB handbook.

[XorXor]

17. Seems like a risky move for Putin to make

Flying in tens of thousand or more people into Russia in the hopes that they will be able to cross into neighboring countries? What is he going to do when/if they cannot get over and those people he's using a pawns decide to settle in Russia?

[BumRushDaShow]

18. They'll find their equivalent of a

"Perla" and trick them all into it - knowing the border is "porous". Obviously Poland knows this and is trying to respond. And I expect they have nothing like the type of immigration policies that we have.

[XorXor]

19. It just seems like getting enough across for it to be an effective form of economic warfare is hard

A few buses full or even planes doesn't seem like a huge a task, but doing that hundreds or thousands times over would require movement and planning that would be detected. If they are planning this as suggested, I'm curious how they plan on doing it. Even when I switch my mind to evil mode, I can't really think of any "good" ideas on making it work. Although, the mere suggestion they may do it and the reaction it provokes may be all that is needed to provoke enough problems in Poland.

[BumRushDaShow]

20. Many of the wealthier European countries

are continually getting migrants. So "recruiting" these migrants to "dump" on Poland - whether from the Russian side or from the Belarus side, could happen as a "spite" job since obviously Poland has been assisting migrants from Ukraine.

You may have heard how a current migration crisis has fared in Italy recently -

Italy silent as ships with 1,000 rescued migrants seek help

By MASSIMO di NONNO and COLLEEN BARRY Associated Press
November 3, 2022, 1:12 PM



ABOARD THE GEO BARENTS -- Humanitarian groups caring for nearly 1,000 rescued migrants on three ships in the central Mediterranean are sounding an alarm about deteriorating conditions, but Italy's new far-right-led government has not responded to requests for a safe port as it hardens its position against rescue boats.

The country's new interior minister, Matteo Piantedosi, has set the groundwork to ban humanitarian ships from Italian ports while appealing to countries whose flags the rescue ships fly to relieve the burden on Italy by accepting the rescued passengers. The moves are reminiscent of the anti-NGO posture taken by League party leader Matteo Salvini, now the deputy premier, who prevented humanitarian ships from accessing Italy’s ports when he was interior minister from 2018-19.

So far, Italy, along with Malta, have remained silent in response to requests for a safe port from the three ships: the Doctors without Borders-operated Geo Barents, which has 572 people on board; SOS Mediteranee’s Ocean Viking, with 234 people on board, and the SOS Humanity’s Humanity 1 with 179. All were rescued over a weeklong period beginning Oct. 22.

While Italy is de facto blocking the humanitarian ships from disembarking the 1,000 people, Interior Ministry figures indicate that Italian authorities brought 6,383 others to the country's shores over the last week. Migrant arrivals by sea to Italy have risen this year, to 85,991 so far compared with 53,825 in the same period last year. The number is still well below the peak arrivals during 2014-2016.

(snip)

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/italy-silent-ships-1000-rescued-migrants-seek-92604275

[sarcasmo]

21. Poland finally wakes up.