Opinions & Interviews

Volfovich calls Lithuanian, Polish border actions an element of hybrid war

An archive photo

MOSCOW, 5 November (BelTA) – Lithuanian and Polish actions on the border constitute a component of hybrid warfare, State Secretary of the Belarusian Security Council Aleksandr Volfovich told reporters following the annual conference of the secretaries of security councils of the CIS states in Moscow on 5 November, BelTA has learned.

“Belarus is trying to maintain dialogue and to find common ground with all of its neighboring countries. As our president says, ‘You don’t get to choose your neighbors; they come from God,’” Aleksandr Volfovich said.

He illustrated the lack of reciprocity by recalling a recent incident. “We recently detected UAVs over our territory heading toward Poland. We made a gesture of goodwill and warned the Polish leadership in advance. We shot down some of the UAVs on our territory; others we could not, but we tracked them and informed Poland. The Poles were completely confused and unprepared for this – a country that wants to consider itself the foremost in Europe in military terms,” he said.

“Instead of responding constructively, expressing gratitude, establishing a dialogue, and objectively investigating the reasons, the Poles closed the border for a week. Who did they harm? First and foremost, themselves and their own population,” the state secretary asserted.

He also commented on the actions of Lithuania. “Look at what the Lithuanians are doing: they have closed the border crossings. As a result, more than 1,500 Lithuanian trucks were stranded on Belarusian territory.”

Aleksandr Volfovich reported that during the meeting, the Belarusian side brought these issues to the attention of its CIS colleagues, emphasizing that such actions by Lithuania and Poland are primarily a threat to stability not for Belarus, but for other states whose cargo travels from East to West and back.

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