WARSAW, Poland: Poland’s lawmakers on Friday approved the speedy construction of a $402 million barrier on the European Union member’s border with Belarus, seeking to stop the increasing flow of migrants.
Now the plan proposed by the right-wing government only needs the approval from President Andrzej Duda, a government ally.
Construction of the wall with motion sensors is to start upon the approval.
Poland and other EU nations are accusing the Belarusian regime of President Alexander Lukashenko of encouraging and aiding migrants from the Mideast and Africa to seek entry into the EU through their borders with Belarus. It says the government in Minsk is seeking to destabilize the whole bloc in retaliation for Western sanctions.
Some migrants, chiefly from Iraq and Syria, have died from exhaustion near Poland’s border with Belarus, which runs over 400 kilometers (250 miles) through forest, bogs and along the Bug River.
Poland has built a razor-wire fence on the border and sent thousands of border guards, troops and police, but the measures have failed to stop the inflow of migrants. The border guards have also been pushing migrants back across the border, including some families with children, and a new Polish law makes that legal.
Poland is also in talks with the European Union’s border agency Frontex regarding plans to fly the migrants back to their home countries.
Migrants who get into any EU country can ask for international protection, or asylum that will cover all of the EU, but in most cases the requests are denied.
Polish lawmakers OK anti-migrant wall on Belarus border
https://arab.news/gqj4s
Polish lawmakers OK anti-migrant wall on Belarus border
- Now the plan proposed by the right-wing government only needs the approval from President Andrzej Duda, a government ally
- Construction of the wall with motion sensors is to start upon the approval
Trump says he asked Putin not to target Kyiv for 1 week during brutal cold spell
- “I personally asked President Putin not to fire on Kyiv and the cities and towns for a week during this ... extraordinary cold,” Trump said
- Zelensky, for his part, thanked Trump for his effort and welcomed the “possibility” of a pause
KYIV: US President Donald Trump said Thursday that President Vladimir Putin has agreed not to target the Ukrainian capital and other towns for one week as the region experiences frigid temperatures.
There was no immediate confirmation from the Kremlin that Putin has agreed to such a pause.
Russia has been pounding Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, hoping to wear down public resistance to the war while leaving many around the country having to endure the dead of winter without heat.
“I personally asked President Putin not to fire on Kyiv and the cities and towns for a week during this ... extraordinary cold,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, adding that Putin has “agreed to that.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked earlier Thursday whether a mutual halt on strikes on energy facilities was being discussed between Russia and Ukraine, and he refused to comment on the issue.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky late Wednesday had warned that Moscow was planning another large-scale barrage despite plans for further US-brokered peace talks at the weekend.
Trump said he was pleased that Putin has agreed to the pause. Kyiv, which has grappled with severe power shortages this winter, is forecast to enter a brutally cold stretch starting Friday that is expected to last into next week. Temperatures in some areas will drop to minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 Fahrenheit), the State Emergency Service warned.
“A lot of people said, ‘Don’t waste the call. You’re not going to get that.’” the Republican US president said of his request of Putin. “And he did it. And we’re very happy that they did it.”
Zelensky, for his part, thanked Trump for his effort and welcomed the “possibility” of a pause in Russian military action on Kyiv and beyond. “Power supply is a foundation of life,” Zelensky said in his social media post.
Trump did not say when the call with Putin took place or when the ceasefire would go into effect. The White House did not immediately respond to a query seeking clarity about the scope and timing of the limited pause in the nearly four-year war.
Russia has sought to deny Ukrainian civilians heat and running water over the course of the war, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. Ukrainian officials describe the strategy as “weaponizing winter.”
Last year was the deadliest for civilians in Ukraine since 2022 as Russia intensified its aerial barrages behind the front line, according to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in the country.
The war killed 2,514 civilians and injured 12,142 in Ukraine — 31 percent higher than in 2024, it said.
