In Poland, on the border with Belarus, hundreds of trucks are stuck in a traffic jam of more than 40 kilometres. This is due to the closure of another important border post by Warsaw and retaliatory measures by Minsk.
It concerns the border crossing in Koroszczyn, currently the only one with Belarus open for freight transport. According to Polish customs, about 1,900 trucks are queuing up, and the waiting time is 63 hours or more than two and a half days.
On February 10, the Polish government suddenly closed the border crossing with Belarus in Bobrowniki, the only other one for freight transport. Warsaw said it did so in the interests of “state security” amid heightened tensions with Minsk.
The Polish decision came the day after a Belarusian court sentenced journalist Andrzej Poczobut, a member of the Polish minority in Belarus, to eight years in prison for his critical reporting. In addition, Belarus is Russia’s only European ally in the invasion of Ukraine, while Poland is one of Kyiv’s main allies.
Belarus denounced the “unilateral” decision to close the border crossing and the operation as “inhumane”. It then decided that Polish trucks with goods could only enter Belarus directly via their common border, and no longer via Lithuania or Latvia, for example.
