Warsaw will not play Minsk’s “games” over the death of a Polish soldier at the countries’ common border, the Polish foreign ministry has said following an “incomprehensible” and apparently evasive response by Belarusian authorities to a formal protest in the matter.
A Polish soldier died on Thursday after being stabbed at the Poland-Belarus border on May 28 while trying to prevent an illegal border crossing. The frontier has been the site of heavy migratory pressure since 2021 in what Warsaw sees as a “hybrid war” tactic engineered by the country’s Alyaksandr Lukashenka regime in a bid to destabilize Poland and the EU.
Following the soldier’s death, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski described the perpetrator as not being a migrant or refugee but a “common criminal” and said a protest note would be presented immediately to the Belarusian chargé d'affaires demanding action.
“We demand that the Belarusian authorities identify the murderer and hand him over to the Polish authorities as part of the investigation already being conducted by our Ministry of Justice,” Sikorski said.
On Friday, a spokesman for the Belarusian foreign ministry, Anatol Glaz, posted a reply on the ministry’s website to a question on the subject by Russian news agency TASS.
Having acknowledged receipt of the protest note and said it would be considered “in light of all the circumstances,” Glaz went on to express condolences to the soldier’s family and friends.
The remainder of the post drew the ire of Glaz’s Polish counterpart.
“Of course, it is necessary to restore normal border contacts so that such tragedies do not occur,” the post read. “However, a few years ago, the Polish side proactively and quite loudly broke off cooperation with Belarus in the law enforcement sphere, ceased contacts on legal assistance, and stopped the dialog in the line of border commissioners. All this, I emphasize, was done unilaterally by the Polish leadership.
“Our position is consistent: we are open to mutually respectful dialog,” the statement continued. “Belarus is ready to restore co-operation in the law enforcement sphere, but this is a two-way street. Therefore, it is possible to restore such interaction only in full. Without this, such public notes are not a way to systematically solve the problem, but an excessive politicization of a quite specific issue, an attempt to justify oneself before one's own public opinion and to shift responsibility. Moreover, unfortunately, this is not an isolated case of Polish military deaths on the border, but for some reason the Polish leadership does not remember about it so publicly.”
Polish foreign ministry spokesman Paweł Wroński told PAP on Friday that the response amounted to “incomprehensible propaganda.” He said the ministry’s protest note had been unambiguous and had been a request to “identify and extradite the murderer of the Polish soldier and to cease hybrid attacks.”
“This person is on the territory of Belarus,” Wroński continued, “so either that country intends to extradite the murderer or they do not intend to, while telling various strange stories.”
Wroński reiterated that the Polish request was clear: “Either you extradite that man or you don’t.”
“Everything else is some incomprehensible propagandistic evasions; we will not reply to such communications and play their games,” he said. “The murderer of a Polish soldier either is or is not being protected by the Belarusian state.”
Seeking Justice
Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, said later on Friday that he believed the perpetrators of the soldier’s murder would ultimately be brought to justice. He said the Polish public had been shaken by the death of a soldier who had been “killed in the service of the homeland, guarding our border.”
Foreign Minister Sikorski said the attack was no “accidental brawl” but that the circumstances were planned and “these people are being trained.”
Sikorski said the soldier was stabbed using “methods that officers of the Belarusian state teach to these hooligans, these bandits.”
He added that everything currently happening at the Polish-Belarusian border is the responsibility of Lukashenka and his Moscow counterpart, Vladimir Putin, who he described as “a pair of dictators.”
He also said the Belarusian chargé d'affaires had assured him that Minsk wanted good relations with Warsaw, but said this was hard to believe as the Belarusian authorities’ actions contradict their words.
“We received an assurance that our note would get a reply,” he said. “We don’t have it yet.”
Following the soldier’s death, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski described the perpetrator as not being a migrant or refugee but a “common criminal” and said a protest note would be presented immediately to the Belarusian chargé d'affaires demanding action.
“We demand that the Belarusian authorities identify the murderer and hand him over to the Polish authorities as part of the investigation already being conducted by our Ministry of Justice,” Sikorski said.
On Friday, a spokesman for the Belarusian foreign ministry, Anatol Glaz, posted a reply on the ministry’s website to a question on the subject by Russian news agency TASS.
Having acknowledged receipt of the protest note and said it would be considered “in light of all the circumstances,” Glaz went on to express condolences to the soldier’s family and friends.
The remainder of the post drew the ire of Glaz’s Polish counterpart.
“Of course, it is necessary to restore normal border contacts so that such tragedies do not occur,” the post read. “However, a few years ago, the Polish side proactively and quite loudly broke off cooperation with Belarus in the law enforcement sphere, ceased contacts on legal assistance, and stopped the dialog in the line of border commissioners. All this, I emphasize, was done unilaterally by the Polish leadership.
“Our position is consistent: we are open to mutually respectful dialog,” the statement continued. “Belarus is ready to restore co-operation in the law enforcement sphere, but this is a two-way street. Therefore, it is possible to restore such interaction only in full. Without this, such public notes are not a way to systematically solve the problem, but an excessive politicization of a quite specific issue, an attempt to justify oneself before one's own public opinion and to shift responsibility. Moreover, unfortunately, this is not an isolated case of Polish military deaths on the border, but for some reason the Polish leadership does not remember about it so publicly.”
Polish foreign ministry spokesman Paweł Wroński told PAP on Friday that the response amounted to “incomprehensible propaganda.” He said the ministry’s protest note had been unambiguous and had been a request to “identify and extradite the murderer of the Polish soldier and to cease hybrid attacks.”
“This person is on the territory of Belarus,” Wroński continued, “so either that country intends to extradite the murderer or they do not intend to, while telling various strange stories.”
Wroński reiterated that the Polish request was clear: “Either you extradite that man or you don’t.”
“Everything else is some incomprehensible propagandistic evasions; we will not reply to such communications and play their games,” he said. “The murderer of a Polish soldier either is or is not being protected by the Belarusian state.”
Seeking Justice
Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, said later on Friday that he believed the perpetrators of the soldier’s murder would ultimately be brought to justice. He said the Polish public had been shaken by the death of a soldier who had been “killed in the service of the homeland, guarding our border.”
Foreign Minister Sikorski said the attack was no “accidental brawl” but that the circumstances were planned and “these people are being trained.”
Sikorski said the soldier was stabbed using “methods that officers of the Belarusian state teach to these hooligans, these bandits.”
He added that everything currently happening at the Polish-Belarusian border is the responsibility of Lukashenka and his Moscow counterpart, Vladimir Putin, who he described as “a pair of dictators.”
He also said the Belarusian chargé d'affaires had assured him that Minsk wanted good relations with Warsaw, but said this was hard to believe as the Belarusian authorities’ actions contradict their words.
“We received an assurance that our note would get a reply,” he said. “We don’t have it yet.”
Source: PAP, mfa.gov.by
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