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War between Poland, Belarus unlikely, Polish politician says

Polish authorities pin the blame for the situation on the Belarusian leadership

WARSAW, November 16. /TASS/. Leader of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party, Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski thinks that a war with Belarus is unlikely. He said this in an interview with Polskie Radio on Tuesday, commenting on the crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border.

"We already have a hybrid war but a war with the use of weapons is, likely, not in the offing. I am using this word, 'likely,' because we are dealing with an unpredictable opponent," he specified.

According to the politician, the Belarusian authorities whom Warsaw accuses of leading a hybrid war against Poland using migrants "won’t dare [to do] more than what is there now." "I believe this and I think that our listeners believe that still there won’t be a war," he added.

In 2021, Polish border guards thwarted over 33,000 attempts to illegally cross the Polish-Belarusian border which is 370 times more than last year’s figures. On November 8, the situation unraveled as several thousand migrants approached the border. Periodically, large groups of them attempted to break through the fences and cross into Poland.

Polish authorities pin the blame for the situation on the Belarusian leadership, who, according to Warsaw, intentionally brings in migrants in order to direct them to the border with the EU to destabilize the situation there. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko stated that the Western countries themselves were to blame for the situation since people were fleeing war in their homelands because of the West’s belligerent policies.

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