EU chief thanks Poland for helping protect Europe from “predator” Putin on visit to Belarus border

Aug 31, 2025 | Defence, Featured, Politics

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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.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has thanked Poland for defending Europe from “cynical hybrid attacks” during a visit with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk to the border with Belarus. She emphasised the “urgency” of protecting the EU’s frontier from the “predator” Vladimir Putin.

Tusk, meanwhile, said that it is time to end the illusion that “concessions” or “subtle games” can bring about a diplomatic breakthrough with Putin. “Poland, Europe, NATO, and the United States must once again be very tough, decisive and united against this latest version of the evil empire,” he declared.

von der Leyen visited Poland today on the fourth leg of a tour she is making of frontline eastern EU states, which began on Friday with a trip to Latvia and Finland, followed by Estonia on Saturday. After leaving Poland, she will head to Bulgaria, Lithuania and Romania.

Her visit is intended to “underscore the EU’s support for member states facing the challenges of sharing borders with Russia or Belarus”, says the European Commission.

During von der Leyen’s press conference with Tusk, which took place in front of the anti-migrant fence Poland has built along the Belarus border, the Polish prime minister revealed that the security services had recommended changing venue because armed Belarusian soldiers had been seen nearby.

But both leaders agreed to go ahead because there can be “no concessions, no one will intimidate or bother us here”, declared Tusk. “We are here to show true European determination.”

 

Speaking alongside him, von der Leyen said she had come “to express Europe’s full solidarity with Poland as a frontline state”. She noted that “for years now, the Polish people have been facing deliberate and cynical hybrid attacks, and I want to emphasise that Europe stands with you in all possible ways”.

Since 2021, Poland has been experiencing a migration crisis on its eastern border engineered by Belarus, which has encouraged and assisted tens of thousands of migrants – mainly from the Middle East, Africa and Asia – to try to illegally enter the European Union.

Those actions – along with a campaign of propaganda, disinformation and sabotage – have been termed a “hybrid war” by Polish and other European leaders, who note that Belarus’s ally, Russia, has also been behind many such actions.

“Europe’s borders are a shared responsibility,” said von der Leyen, who noted that funds have already been released to invest in defence spending and border protection, with even more planned in the proposed EU budget for the 2028-2034 period.

“We have to keep this sense of urgency because we know that Putin has not changed and will not change. He is a predator…He can only be kept in check through strong deterrence,” she warned.

von der Leyen finished by thanking Poland for “showing how courage and determination but also knowledge about our history and what we can learn from it come together in a very concrete action to protect…the European border and thus…the whole democratic world”.

Earlier, in a social media post, she also praised Poland for being “the largest defence spender in Europe”. Poland has this year devoted around 4.5% of GDP to defence, by far the highest relative level in NATO, and it plans to raise that figure to 4.8% next year.

Tusk, meanwhile, noted that today’s meeting was taking place on the anniversary of the formation in 1980 of the Solidarity trade union that helped bring about the collapse of communism in Poland nine years later.

Part of Solidarity’s “mission was to unite Europe and separate it from the evil empire”, said Tusk, who was himself a Solidarity activist in his youth. “This border [with Belarus] is just as important today as our dream of liberation from Soviet domination was then.”

He added that events in Ukraine in recent days and weeks clearly demonstrate that “no concessions, no subtle game with Vladimir Putin and the aggressive Russia will lead to success or guarantee our security”. Instead, Europe and the US must once again unite against the “evil empire”.

“We take our responsibilities seriously and expect all institutions and states in Europe to take the security of our eastern border equally seriously and to take a tough stance against the aggressor, Russia,” added the prime minister. “A secure Poland, a secure border, means a secure Europe.”


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: KPRM/Flickr (under CC BY-ND-ND 4.0)

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