(24 Jun 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
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ASSOCIATED PRESS VIA AGENCY POOL (REUTERS)
Paris – 24 June 2024
1. Wide of German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, French Defence Minister Sebastian Lecornu and Polish Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz during news conference
2. SOUNDBITE (Polish) Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, Polish Defence Minister:
"Today we are facing a huge problem. Not a migration problem, let me say, there are no migrants on the Poland-Belarus border. There are people there who are attacking Polish soldiers, policemen and border guards. And these persons have been trained and prepared to do that. They don’t want to seek asylum in Europe, but they are trying to cross the border to attack those who are guarding the border, guarding the European Union’s eastern border, guarding NATO’s eastern flank. This is an organized hybrid action against Western civilisation, against Western countries, against NATO and against the European Union. I have asked for support, not in the military area, but police support, border guard support."
3. Cutaway of Lecornu and Kosiniak-Kamysz
4. SOUNDBITE (Polish) Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, Polish Defence Minister:
"(We need) a joint response, a strong response by the European Union to the hybrid attack on Europe."
5. End of news conference
STORYLINE:
Poland’s Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said on Monday there was "organized hybrid action" on the Belarus border, alleging that trained and "prepared persons" were deliberately attacking Polish soldiers, policemen and border guards.
"They don’t want to seek asylum in Europe, but they are trying to cross the border to attack those who are guarding the border, guarding the European Union’s eastern border, guarding NATO’s eastern flank. This is an organized hybrid action against Western civilisation," he said, speaking in Paris.
The situation at the European Union’s eastern border is increasingly tense under pressure from thousands of people from the Middle East, Asia and Africa, trying to force their way through a metal barrier that Poland put up in 2022 to seal the frontier.
Latest figures from the Polish Border Guard say there have been some 17,000 attempts at illegally crossing the border this year.
Poland and the EU say many of the migrants are organized and aided by Russia and its ally Belarus to destabilize Europe.
According to Polish officials, about 90% of the migrants at Poland’s border have Russian visas, which points to Russia’s role.
The border is patrolled by about 6,000 Polish army troops, some 2,200 border guards and a few hundred police.
A soldier who died earlier this month was stabbed in the chest in May by a migrant who reached through the bars of the border barrier.
Recently, some other officers also required hospital treatment for knife and other wounds inflicted from behind the barrier.
Following the stabbing attack, the government vowed to further step up security at the border and areas of buffer zones, where only the guards can go, to facilitate their task.
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