Belarus calls for “dialogue with Poland to reduce risk of armed clashes” amid military build-up

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Belarus says that it wants to hold talks with Poland aimed at “reducing the risk of armed clashes” amid a military build-up around their border. Minsk claims that it wants “peaceful coexistence and cooperation”.

Relations between the two neighbours have been particularly bad in recent years due to Belarus’s persecution of political protesters and ethnic Poles, its engineering of a migration crisis on the Polish border, and its support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.

In April, after Belarus announced that it would host joint military exercises with Russia, Warsaw said that it would respond in an “appropriate manner”, including by holding “large Polish and NATO exercises in Poland”.

The following month, Minsk announced that it was scaling back the exercises and moving them further away from the Polish border in order to demonstrate its “readiness for dialogue, compromise, and the reduction of tensions”.

Today, the Belarusian defence ministry issued a statement saying that in June it sent a formal proposal to Poland through the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) for talks.

Minsk has a “desire to establish a dialogue with the Polish military-political leadership with the aim of reducing the potential risks of armed clashes against the backdrop of the deployment of additional forces and assets of the Polish army near the state border of Belarus”, read today’s statement.

It claimed that “the accelerated militarisation of Poland” is “an additional factor contributing to the growth of tension in eastern Europe” and accused Warsaw of “escalating the situation in the region”.

As evidence, it pointed to Poland raising its defence budget to a record 4.7% of GDP, launching plans to further fortify its eastern border, withdrawing from a global anti-landmine treaty, and sending 11,000 additional military personnel to the Belarus border.

The statement, however, failed to mention that the troops were stationed there in response to a migration crisis engineered by Belarus, which has encouraged and assisted thousands of people, mostly from Africa and Asia, in trying to cross the border into Poland.

Meanwhile, Poland’s record military spending in recent years has come in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which is supported by Belarus. Minsk has also hosted joint military exercise with Russian Wagner mercenaries and China on its territory.

In today’s statement, the Belarusian defence ministry said that it hoped that “the resumption of interaction” with Poland “could serve as the first step towards…stabilising the situation in the region as a whole”.

However, it believes that Warsaw’s failure to offer anything other than a “formal response” to the suggestion indicates that it “continues to unconditionally follow the instructions of those who benefit from the outbreak of a new military conflict in Europe”. It expressed hope that Poland would choose the path of “security, peaceful coexistence and cooperation”.

At the time of writing, Poland’s government had not commented on Belarus’s statement.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Martyna Niecko / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.