A Polish minister used Trumpian-esque language to hail the success of a huge £300million anti-migration fence built along its border with Belarus. Warsaw’s foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski said the 116-mile fence has proved “98% effective” in stopping migrants crossing the border into Poland.
The revelation comes after Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced his country will begin temporary controls along its borders with Germany and Lithuania. He said the move was in response to border restrictions taken by Berlin and comes amid rising concerns over illegal immigration in the Schengen area. Poland built its five-and-a-half metre fence along the border with Belarus in 2022 but has since gone under upgrades, including CCTV cameras, overground and underground sensors and an adjacent patrol road.
Mr Sikorski described the enhanced fence in eastern Poland as “big and beautiful” — a phrase that has become closely associated with Donald Trump for his “big, beautiful bill”.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that “hardly anybody gets through that barrier”.
“We had large numbers of people who were invited by Russia and Belarus from the Middle East and Africa who were then pushed across the Polish-Belarusian border into Poland,” said Mr Sikorski, who was invited on the show to discuss Britain’s small boats crisis in the English Channel.
Poland has accused Belarus — a crucial ally of Vladimir Putin’s Russia — of conducting a “hybrid war” against Warsaw.
The fence is equipped with razor wire and at border crossings there are big concrete blocks and anti-tank defences.
Poland is investing £1.9billion into a 400-mile “East Shield” along its borders with Belarus and Russia.
Announced last year, the major project is designed to strengthen NATO’s eastern flank and includes a series of defences, with one main focus being on a muli-layered line of physical barriers to deter and halt any enemy forces.
This includes minefields, ditches, fences, shelters and anti-tank defences.