Poland will turn a fence along its border with Russia into a state-of-the-art barrier, Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski has pledged.
The construction of upgrades on the frontier with Russia’s Kaliningrad Region began on Tuesday morning, the Polish cabinet member announced during a press conference.
“It will be an extremely modern wall, the same as on the border with Belarus. Plenty of day and night cameras, motion sensors,” the minister said.
According to Kaminski, once the fence is completed sometime in autumn, the Polish authorities will be able to “fully monitor” the border and will be “perfectly prepared” to counter any illegal activity.
“This will be the most secure border of the European Union,” the minister claimed.
Warsaw initially announced the construction of a razor-wire barrier on its border with Russia last November. Officials claimed it was necessary to prevent illegal migrants from the Middle East and Africa from reaching Polish territory after traveling to the Russian exclave by air.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov remarked at the time that the decision was a domestic matter for Poland. However, he added that “history every time proves the silliness of decisions to build walls, because over the years or decades, all walls fall.”
As of March, the Polish military had completed over half of the roughly 200km-long fence, which has three rows of razor wire each measuring 2.5 meters high and 3 meters wide, according to a progress report. The cameras and sensors which are now being added were part of the original project.
Poland has also built a wall on its border with Belarus. Construction was launched in 2021 amid a migrant crisis and was finished in June of last year.
The project was criticized by environmentalists, who argued it threatened wildlife in the Belovezhsky (Bialowieza) Forest, a massive woodland that the two nations share. The barrier cut the natural habitat in two, activists said.