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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.
Poland’s consulate in Brussels has been vandalised with red paint, dog faeces and graffiti saying “killers” and “fuck the wall” – a presumed reference to the anti-migrant barrier Poland has erected on its border with Belarus.
“Someone doesn’t like the wall on the Polish-Belarusian border,” wrote Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski in response to the incident. “That means our migration policy is effective.”
Komuś nie podoba się dokończony mur na granicy polsko-białoruskiej.
To znaczy, że nasza polityka migracyjna jest skuteczna.
Dziękuję @Straz_Graniczna.
Chronicie Polskę i Europę przed ludźmi, którzy szanują nas tak, jak na obrazku. https://t.co/aTIG8lQVHA— Radosław Sikorski 🇵🇱🇪🇺 (@sikorskiradek) December 20, 2025
News of the vandalism was first reported on Saturday morning by Polish broadcaster RMF, which shared images of the damage. One showed red paint splashed on and around an entrance door, alongside graffiti saying “killers” (in English) on a plaque next to the door.
“Dog faeces were scattered in front of the entrance,” added RMF. Another photograph showed “fuck the wall” (jebać mur) spray-painted in Polish onto a wall near the door.
Polish foreign ministry spokesman Maciej Wewiór confirmed to RMF that the incident had taken place on Thursday.
“Political slogans targeting the security of Poland and the European Union were displayed on the facade of the consular section of the Polish embassy in Brussels,” said Wewiór, adding that the incident had been reported to the authorities and was being investigated.
RMF reports that surveillance footage shows a group of three or four masked people carrying out the vandalism while another person recorded their actions on a phone.
The local authorities in the Etterbeek municipality where the consulate is located quickly sent a specialist company to help remove the paint from the consulate.
One anonymous employee of the consulate told RMF that “it looks like Russian provocation, but it could be anything; it’s about sowing confusion and uncertainty”.
In recent years, Russia has undertaken a campaign of so-called hybrid actions in European countries that involve acts of sabotage, vandalism and propaganda, designed to test responses and sow divisions.
Poland has arrested a 17-year-old Ukrainian who it says was recruited by Russia to carry out acts "intended to incite tensions between Poles and Ukrainians", including last week's vandalism of a monument to Poles massacred by Ukrainian nationalists in WW2 https://t.co/imzsjgaUVN
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) August 13, 2025
The consular employee also told RMF that the graffiti appeared to be “about the wall on the border with Belarus” as well as a “protest against Frontex”, the EU’s border agency.
Since 2021, Belarus, a close ally of Russia, has been encouraging and assisting tens of thousands of migrants – mainly from the Middle East, Asia and Africa – to enter the EU by illegally crossing the borders with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.
Poland and the EU regard that artificially created migration crisis as part of the hybrid actions being used by Russia and Belarus in an effort to destabilise the EU.
In response, Poland has built physical and electronic barriers along the border and, last year, introduced a tougher migration strategy, including temporarily limiting the right to claim asylum.
A report earlier this year by Doctors Without Borders noted that there have been 89 recorded deaths among people trying to cross the border. Last year, a Polish soldier died after being stabbed while trying to stop a group from crossing.
Poland says that “specialists from the Middle East” have been brought to Belarus to dig tunnels under the border for migrants to cross into Poland.
Four such tunnels have been discovered this year, including one last week that was used by 180 migrants https://t.co/4ConkQnj8z
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) December 16, 2025
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: Google Street View
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.
