MINSK, 22 November (BelTA) – A fence on the border of Poland and Belarus has no practical meaning. It is purely a publicity stunt of Polish politicians, Polish political analyst Mateusz Piskorski said in a new episode of the V Teme [On Point] project on BelTA's YouTube channel.
"I have a friend who bought a land plot on the Polish side of our common beautiful Belovezhskaya Pushcha a few years ago. He would go there for recreation, bring his friends with him. Recently he has said that it is now a mission impossible because the frontier areas have been heavily militarized. In fact, there is no local emergency which was officially declared by the Polish authorities last year. Yet, the number of armed soldiers is great, and it has become almost impossible to have a quiet time there," Mateusz Piskorski said.
As for the fence on the Belarus-Poland border, Mateusz Piskorski suggested viewing it in a purely symbolic dimension, at the level of certain symbols."We are building a wall against 'barbarians and savages from the East'. I apologize for these words but this is the perception of the Polish government. Therefore, the fence has not so much military significance as the symbolic one. The Cold War lives on, and this fence is reminiscent of other symbolic walls that were built during the previous Cold War. Thus, we cease all contacts. On a symbolic level, we cut off any communication between our countries. I think it was for this reason that the Polish government decided to build a fence," Mateusz Piskorski said.
The political analyst named other reasons. For example, a pure PR stunt: "This is very similar to the wall on the border with Mexico that Donald Trump was building in the United States. Last year the University of Texas did a research to find out that this fence did not affect the number of illegal migrants from Mexico to the United States. Those who organize all sorts of smuggling and who deliver illegal migrants to the United States have found a way around this wall. Unlike animals that get entangled in barbed wire and suffer humans have the technical ability to circumvent such obstacles."
Mateusz Piskorski stressed that this is only part of the domestic PR campaign by politicians and parties in Poland who cultivate this image of defenders of the besieged fortress in the eyes of the Polish society. These things happened even before the special military operation. Back then they were already taking decisions to create a sense of the threat against which Polish politicians are fighting.
