KALININGRAD, November 6. /TASS/. By deploying police forces to its border with Russia, the Republic of Poland is attempting to divert attention from internal political problems, specifically those surrounding the Constitutional Tribunal, Sergey Blagov, head of the Polish Studies Department at the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University’s Institute of Geopolitical and Regional Studies, told TASS.

A political crisis has emerged in Poland following Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s decision to appoint a former member of his cabinet, Maciej Berek, as a judge on the Constitutional Tribunal. In recent weeks, the tribunal’s building has been the site of regular protests. On October 30, Waldemar Zurek, a senior judicial official, filed a motion to suspend the acting president of the Constitutional Tribunal, Bogdan Swieczkowski, from his duties and to strip him of his immunity. Reinforced police units were brought in to secure the tribunal’s premises. On the night of October 31, protesters gathered near the building and attempted to breach the perimeter fencing. Police detained three individuals.

"It appears that the ongoing domestic political crisis in Warsaw is being used as a pretext to distract the public from the very crisis involving the Constitutional Tribunal. This can only be described as an attempt to divert attention," the expert told TASS.

As TASS previously reported, members of Poland’s GROM special operations unit had been deployed to the border with Russia’s Kaliningrad Region to take part in a police operation aimed at preventing "planned acts of sabotage," according to official statements.

The Kaliningrad Region is a Russian semi-exclave separated from the country’s mainland by the territories of European Union and NATO member states. Rhetoric concerning potential measures against the region has intensified in recent months, with threats of an economic and territorial blockade of the Kaliningrad Region appearing in the foreign press.