Maciej Wąsik, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Poland, said on Monday that Russia and Belarus were organising another campaign of an influx of migrants travelling to the European Union through the Polish border in order to destabilise the region.

Source: AFP news outlet quoting a statement by Wąsik, reported by European Pravda 

Details: Wąsik said that although the situation is "not as chaotic as it was two years ago", it is still worrying.

Quote: "We are talking about an operation organised by the Russian and Belarusian secret services, which is becoming more and more intense."

More details: Tomasz Praga, Head of the Polish Border Service, in turn, called the Belarusian services "a criminal group that manages illegal migration" and "makes huge profits from it".

Praga added that this year alone, 19,000 migrants tried to enter Poland from Belarus, 4,000 of them in June alone, while in 2022 there were 16,000.

Background: 

• In the summer of 2021, Lukashenko’s regime caused a hybrid migration crisis on the borders of Belarus' European neighbours, facilitating the arrival of people from Africa and the Middle East on the border.
• The Baltic states and Poland see this as revenge for their tough stance on Lukashenko's repression of the Belarusian opposition and civil society.
• Since the winter of 2021, the intensity of such attempts has significantly decreased, but the problem has not disappeared. People helping migrants to continue their journey deeper into the EU are also regularly identified.

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