Poland foils attempted 'provocation' on Russian border, PM Tusk says

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Tuesday that his country had thwarted a potential "provocation" on the border with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad overnight.

Tusk said he was informed shortly after midnight of activity deemed suspicious along the border in the north of the country. "We managed to prevent attempts at provocation – if that was indeed the intention," he told reporters.

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He gave few details but said that “individuals with flashlights” had been observed in the border area. The Polish guards prevented any incident from happening. 

Poland, NATO’s largest member on the alliance’s eastern flank, borders Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave to the north and Belarus, Moscow’s close ally, to the east.

“Just after midnight, I received information from the border guards that disturbing movement had been observed on the Polish-Russian border,” Tusk said.

The Polish police, working with the military, border guards and intelligence services, have been carrying out additional activities recently to strengthen security along Poland’s borders with Russia and Belarus, including near the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

The preventive measures were being conducted in the northeastern regions of Warmia-Masuria and Podlaskie, a police spokesperson said. 

On Tuesday, Tusk confirmed that a special operation coordinated by the police was happening in the two border regions. 

Tusk said additional police and other troops, including counter-terrorism units, were recently directed to Poland’s north-east border regions after authorities received “more precise” information that acts of sabotage, including a potential incursion into Poland by “armed people”, were possible in the first half of November. 

“We have been receiving information for some time from our services and from allies' services that ... acts of diversion or more serious provocations on the border with Russia, or even sabotage acts orchestrated by hostile services, could occur,” Tusk said. 

He said he received further warnings about possible escalations from Alexus Grynkewich, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, while he was in Warsaw in October. 

Tusk has been warning for months that Russia might be preparing a more serious hybrid attack against a NATO country. His warnings have gotten increasingly specific as he received intelligence from NATO, Ukrainian and US secret services, including the CIA, he said.

Tusk said it was not possible to confirm with full certainty that the incident was an attempted provocation. He said Russia’s intensified escalation would continue and was unlikely to be limited to this incident.