For many years, the border between Poland and Belarus was a relatively calm place, and was almost no different from other borders with similar countries. But in 2021, Belarus created a migration crisis on its borders with the European Union - thousands of migrants flocked to Europe, with Lithuania and Poland especially affected in this regard. On November 4, 2021, the Polish government announced plans to build a barbed wire fence on the border. Eight months later the work was completed. A permanent fence was then built using strong metal panels and Egoza barbed wire.
The Polish border barrier in some places is a fence with razor wire, in parts it is a fence made of concertina wire, and runs along the entire length of Poland’s 186-kilometer border with Belarus. The construction of the fence and installation of barbed wire cost the budget 1.3 billion zlotys, or more than 301 million euros. Additionally, Poland has equipped its border with the Kaliningrad region. The situation on the border is monitored by about 2,500 surveillance cameras and more than 10 thousand soldiers and border guards. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Polish-Belarusian border has become a major headache on NATO's eastern flank.