WARSAW

Poland is preparing to build bunkers and trenches along its borders with Russia and Belarus, defense chief Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz told Radio ZET on Thursday.

Asked if Poland should start building bunkers, ditches and trenches on the borders, Kosiniak-Kamysz replied: "Yes, the entire plan is already being prepared.”

“We are doing this already de facto. I treat this question a little more broadly, as a strengthening of the border,” he said. “We are repairing and strengthening the fence along the Polish-Belarusian border, there is a military group in Podlasie, in the Lublin, Masovian and Warmian-Masurian regions and an army presence supporting the border guards,” he added.

Poland joined NATO in 1999 and Lithuania in 2004, resulting in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad being surrounded by NATO states. The Suwalki Gap, a 65-kilometer (40-mile) strip of land between Kaliningrad and Belarus, thus became a site of possible future conflicts, exacerbated in recent months as Poland and Russia ramp up military rhetoric and NATO and Russian forces conduct military exercises near the border.

In January 2022, Poland started building a border fence on its border with Belarus to prevent illegal immigration amid the Belarus–EU border crisis.

The 5.5-meter (18-foot) steel fence topped with barbed wire cost $407 million. It was completed on June 30, 2022.

In late 2022, Polish soldiers began laying razor wire along Poland’s border with Kaliningrad.