Are migrants Russia's pawns?

Poland says Russia and Belarus are weaponizing newcomers to benefit Europe's far-right

- RAFAL NIEDZIELSKI AND CZAREK SOKOLOWSKI

A view of migrants behind the metal barrier that Poland has erected along its border with Belarus, in Bialowieza Forest, on May 29. Poland says its neighbour is behind a surge of migrants heading toward the European Union.

A Somali woman pushes her bandaged hand between two vertical bars of a thick metal barrier separating Belarus from Poland as she and four other women gaze toward the European Union.

They nod gratefully as a Polish humanitarian aid worker calls to them across a stretch of land as wide as a one-lane road and promises to help. Polish soldiers patrol nearby.

The verdant patch of Bialowieza Forest that spans the border is among the flashpoints of a monthslong standoff between Belarus and its main backer and ally Russia, and the 27-member European bloc, which has seen a surge in migrant flows toward the frontier ahead of EU parliamentary elections that start on Thursday.

What happened on the border?

The number of attempted illegal border crossings from Belarus into EU-member Poland has shot up in recent months to almost 400 a day — from only a handful a day earlier this year, Polish officials say.

Poland’s border guards have also decried increasingly aggressive behaviour by some migrants on the Belarus side of the border. They have posted online videos of some throwing rocks, logs and even burning wood at the Polish troops from behind the fence.

There have been cases of soldiers and guards being hospitalized and some have needed stitches after being stabbed or cut by knife-wielding assailants.

Last Tuesday near the village of Dubicze Cerkiewne, officials said a migrant reached between the bars of the 16-feet-tall barrier and stabbed a soldier in the ribs. On Thursday, a soldier died, Poland’s military said, after he was stabbed in the chest by a migrant who reached through the bars of the barrier at the Belarus border.