Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Tuesday, 3 November, that just after midnight he received a report from the Border Guard about worrying activity on the Polish-Russian border in the north. According to him, the quick mobilisation of forces made it possible to prevent a provocation, “if that was the intention”.
The head of government spoke about this at the start of a Council of Ministers meeting. As he put it, the concern involved “individuals with torches”. He added that the services very quickly deployed appropriate forces and resources to the site. He also cautioned: “we will never be able to fully confirm this”. According to TVN24 and Polsat News, the prime minister stressed that, in the Border Guard’s assessment, the situation required full mobilisation and on-site control.
Warnings about the first half of November
Tusk said that Polish and allied services had for some time been warning of possible acts of sabotage or more serious provocations on the border with the Russian Federation. Sabotage prepared by hostile services could also have occurred, and according to WP, armed individuals may also have entered Polish territory. In the prime minister’s view, such incidents could have happened precisely in the first half of November.
After receiving more precise information, the government decided to send significant police forces to the border area, reinforce the Border Guard and deploy counter-terrorism officers. As RMF FM reports, the supreme allied commander in Europe, Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, also warned of a possible scenario.
Operation headquarters in Warsaw
The prime minister confirmed that a special operation headquarters has been set up at the Police Headquarters. It covers the Warmian-Masurian and Podlaskie voivodeships and is run by the police in cooperation with the Border Guard, the military and special services. We already reported on the creation of the headquarters on Monday: police set up an operations headquarters at the Kaliningrad border due to the risk of sabotage. Police Chief Gen. Marek Boroń spoke of signals concerning possible sabotage.
Wirtualna Polska reported that soldiers of the GROM unit are also in the region. According to Wprost, the command explained that GROM training in the region is held regularly. We did not find official government confirmation of GROM’s involvement in the operation in the quoted statements of the prime minister.
What is not known
The prime minister did not say who the people with torches were, which side of the border they were on, how many there were, or whether anyone had been detained. He also did not disclose the exact location of the incident. As of publication, we had not found a separate Border Guard statement describing the incident. Tusk stressed that the services must remain “very strongly focused and mobilised”.
What it means
Residents of counties bordering the Kaliningrad Oblast in Warmian-Masurian and Podlaskie may see more police and Border Guard patrols and checks in the coming days. According to the prime minister, the threat concerns the first half of November, meaning the period up to about 15 November. No official alerts for the public, e.g. from RCB, have been issued on this matter so far.
