Once again, we visited the soldiers on the “band”. The 16th Mechanized Division presently serves the Polish-Belarusian border. We went on a night patrol with 1 of the units. From the study you will learn, among another things, what a “cot” is, how immigrants push a border barrier and whether all effort to overcome the dam is about getting into our territory.
Attempts to cross the border usually happen during the evening crew exchange and between 4:00 and 5:00 in the morning.
– Journalists, present you will be tormented with boars – welcome to the base in the Church Dubich. - And no, you're not moving around the woods looking for game. An officer's face is painted with a Szelmian smile. – They are your companies – the captain nods to a group standing close the military. And then it enlightens me – I matured the patches on the sleeves of soldiers' uniforms. Humoristic IDs depicting a dangerous-looking animal with prominent frills, spiked, dressed in helmet and bulletproof vest. – We are savages – Section commander extends his hand to welcome.
Like a fire department.
– Why specified an thought for patches? – I ask fresh friends. – usually we decision slowly, but if necessary, we enter the action by gallop – I hear in response. After a while I nodded, realizing the accuracy of this analogy. The boars were not expected to service as watchmen at regular stations. The division was equipped with field cars – Korean Kia KLTV – assigning him tasks of flying patrol. We drive along the dam and watch the area. We are doing everything that the staff of the stations do, only that our sectors are much longer, on 1 shift we cover up to 80 km – says 1 of the soldiers. What about that gallop? “When there is an effort to cross the border illegally somewhere, we run with support,” I hear.
– Like the fire department, I'm trying to find an unanimal comparison. – Like the chaotic in the Iguanas – my interlocutor has no mercy, this time recalling the name of what Korean wagons operate in our army. This. light exploratory vehicles of Legwan, 1 of the newest acquisitions of the Polish Army. The armed forces bought about 400 wagons, with a mark of 4,000 vehicles, with most vehicles already being built in Poland. They will replace the good Honkers, besides utilized on the border "strip". 1 of them showed up on cue. Is it possible to compare Legwan to Honker? Heaven and earth... – This laconic comment suffices for my answer.
The Way Open to Heaven
It's dark erstwhile we scope the dam. “We’re close, so we’ll go to Sitka first,” the officer in charge announces. We'll go to Sitka... - I repeat in my mind. This phrase sounds like the announcement of a visit to someone's house. At the station, taking matters into account in the realities of the "belt". In the meantime, the place where he was wounded – with fatality – Matthew Sitek, soldier of the 1st Warsaw Armored Brigade. The tragedy is commemorated by a cross placed on the side of the border road. Regardless of the dates and circumstances covered with flowers and candles. This place is not accessible to outsiders, the decorations are left by soldiers and border guards. The second besides donated a commemorative plaque that hung on the bay of the dam. It shows the words of Jan Kochanowski: “And if to whom the way open to heaven, what service the Homeland.” “He served, died, we gotta remember,” says the chaotic boar commander, “visit at Sitka”. – Moving on – manages after a while.
For a fewer minutes we drive silently, and I play in my head the events of May 28, 2024. Matthew Sitek was attacked with a knife by a migrant who, along with a larger group, attempted to breach the border barrier. The unsub pushed the weapon through the gap between the bays and stabbed the soldier to the side, between the ribs. The injured man went to infirmary in Hajnówka, then to the Military Medical Institute in Warsaw. On June 6, 2024, General Command reported his death. This was not the first act of aggression against WP soldiers and Border defender officers. He wasn't the last.
– We are regularly dealing with dangerous migrants – Although this conviction is expressed by 1 of the boars, I heard akin declarations from another soldiers, not only during the last visit to the border. – They throw stones, rods, glass bottles, sometimes Molotov cocktails at us. We respond with sticks, pepper spray, smooth-bore weapons – another soldier reports. Are they trying to beat the dam utilizing ladders? “Some people do, others cut the barrier with portable circular saws,” I heard, and shortly I’m convinced with my own eyes that it is adequate to remove fragments of 2 spans to make an beginning through which a man will squeeze.
The gap I'm looking at has been temporarily secured with bolted flats. “In the morning, the Border defender will come up here with a welder, and they will recreate the bays,” my interviewer assures me erstwhile I am lighting dirty brown marks on the dam. “You could see that you had to scope for gas...” the origin of the stains was explained to me.
Methodology and system
The wheelbarrow at the... The ‘depressive’ study on the radio is concise. These words don't tell me much, but I heard in the instruction before going to the “strip” that this is the way to communicate in the ether. The wheelbarrow is simply a car moving on the Belarusian side, “retardantly” means that it travels along the border from north to south. It may be a patrol of the Belarusian border guard, but it might as well be another van utilized by the Belarusians to lift migrants to the dam.
- You hear me? - chaotic boar commander lifts his finger. A small earlier we stood at 1 of the police stations, the “bike” was heading towards us. “When are the most common attempts to exceed?” I ask. – During the evening crew exchange – Petty Officer listens carefully to engine sounds. Then they anticipate us to be busy with something else. And between 4:00 and 5:00 in the morning. Here, in turn, they hope that after the night we will be tired, little alert. - How large are the groups pushing the fence? “Some people, sometimes in a dozen, but not in all effort to get into our territory,” explains the military, and I callback the instruction again. – Just a minute ago there was a transition, six people, all caught – says the briefing officer – However, it could only have been a passage that was expected to focus our attention on a certain section on the “band”. Therefore, in these most delicate evening hours I ask you to increase your vigilance – an officer of your command sensitizes.
“We truly see more than they do,” says a soldier at 1 of the stations. He means both Belarusians and migrants. "And they know it."
– Methodical action – I comment. My caller just nods. – This is the full system, expanded and supervised by the Belarusian services – General Tomasz Biedziak, commander of the 20th Mechanized Brigade, whose soldiers service at the border. Migrants are just tools in their hands...
The wheelbarrow went further, according to the study that it had no passengers this time. And in general, it was a quiet night. It may have been that this calm had to do with the “Zap 2025” maneuvers which began in Belarus a fewer days later. Military training was carried out in the north-eastern parts of the country, but the area of maneuvers was secured by the archashenko security. And the regime, though oppressive and expanded, is inactive facing the realities of the "short duvet"; kagiebists, regular engaged in the operation on the Belarusian-Polish border, received another tasks.
He can't sleep for a second.
Anyway, no incidental happened until the morning shift. Even on an episode without a permanent barrier – a wet, marshy area protected by the touring scrolls – there were no attempts to admit at all that night. “We have perimetry, strong lamps, thermo- and night vision, and drones are hanging in the air almost continuously,” says a soldier at 1 of the stations. “We truly see more than they do” means both Belarusians and migrants. And the others know that. But present in our favour is besides played by this guest – the soldier points his head to the cloudless sky. The permanent barrier – along with the road adjacent to it – is simply a narrow belt that wiggles among the tall, cutting off the light of trees. In the basin where we were, the forest grows a fewer 100 meters away. Almost a full moon shield brightly illuminates the nearest area. I rapidly realized that this area could not be moved unnoticed.
I'm going into the pulpit to have an even better field of sight. And then I realize where I truly was. The ancient 1 doesn't even blink for a minute – from everywhere there are sounds of deer at the rink, there are beetles and nightbirds. From our side and from Belarus. Life goes on. “This full nature is wonderful here” admits 1 of my uniformed companions with a chaotic boar patch on his uniform. “It’s a pity we should be here under these circumstances.”
Returning to the base, we pass the construction crew, which just after the first light begins laying asphalt on the “belt”. The end of the border crisis cannot be seen, hence specified drastic interference in the substance of the age forest. "It is simply a pity that we must be here under specified circumstances" – in my head the words that have been heard more late are resounding. I can't disagree with them...
