The Polish embassy in Minsk has provided the Belarusian foreign ministry with detailed information confirming that Polish airspace was violated by two Belarusian military helicopters earlier this week. It has called on Belarus to urgently explain the incident and “put an end to provocations.”
Meanwhile, Russia has accused Poland of “escalating tensions”, pointing to the fact that Warsaw initially reported that its radars did not register the helicopters’ entry into its airspace. The Polish defence ministry reported that the incident was not recorded initially because the Belarusian helicopters were flying too low for radars to register them.
Komunikat MSZ w związku z przekazaniem Ministerstwu Spraw Zagranicznych Republiki Białorusi szczegółowych informacji potwierdzających naruszenie 🇵🇱 przestrzeni powietrznej przez dwa białoruskie śmigłowce wojskowe.
Więcej informacji ⤵️https://t.co/GnCnViE3jo
— Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych RP 🇵🇱 (@MSZ_RP) August 4, 2023
Poland has also provided Minsk with information which, according to the Polish foreign ministry, “irrefutably confirms” that Belarus violated Polish airspace on Friday, a claim Belarus’s defence ministry described earlier as a “baseless rumour”.
“The presented information contradicts the position of the Republic of Belarus, as expressed in official statements,” the Polish foreign ministry said in a statement today, without providing the details passed onto the Belarusian foreign ministry.
“We call on the Belarusian side to urgently explain this incident, correct its position on the matter and put an end to any provocations along the Polish-Belarusian border,” it added.
Until now, Minsk has krinsisted that “there were no violations of the airspace” and suggested that the Poles had “changed their narrative…after consulting with their overseas masters”, reported the Belarusian state-owned BelTA news agency.
Two Belarusian helicopters yesterday entered Polish airspace, says Poland's government, which condemned the “dangerous" incident.
Minsk denies the claims, but eyewitness accounts have also confirmed that the aircraft crossed the border https://t.co/1g7ICzVxIj
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) August 2, 2023
That rhetoric was echoed on Friday by the Kremlin, whose spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said there was “something weird” in the way Poland had communicated about the incident.
“As far as the Belarusian helicopters are concerned, if I understand correctly, the Poles themselves confirmed that this breach was not registered on radar,” Peskov told Russian state RIA Novosti press agency.
“That’s why there’s something weird going on there. In general, Poles themselves are prone to provoking such situations, increasing tensions. This is not something new, it has been progressing in recent years,” he added.
Polish PM warns that there will be further provocations from the Belarusian territory after Belarusian helicopters flew into Polish airspace this week.
In his opinion, Wagner Group troops may try to enter Poland disguised as migrantshttps://t.co/lTEZ8FcE3b
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) August 3, 2023
In recent weeks, the already tense relations between Warsaw and Minsk have further deteriorated after Belarus welcomed the Wagner Group’s mercenaries to its territory following their short-lived and unsuccessful rebellion against Russian generals.
Yesterday, the Polish prime minister and the Lithuanian president warned that the presence of Wagner’s troops in Belarus could mean an increase in provocations from Belarusian territory.
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Main image credit: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland / flickr.com (under CC BY-ND 2.0)
Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.
