Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has claimed a £300 million border wall has proven “98% effective” at preventing attempts of illegal migration from Belarus. 

“We had large numbers of people who were invited by Russia and Belarus from the Middle East and Africa who were then pushed across the Polish-Belarusian border into Poland,” Sikorski told BBCR4’s Today programme.

Warsaw alleges that Minsk and Moscow have long been waging a “hybrid war”, seeking to flood Poland with refugees to strain the country’s finances and law enforcement resources, and destabilise civil society. 

“This year we have completed a big and beautiful fence with sensors overground, underground, with a patrol road alongside it, so hardly anybody gets through that barrier,” Sikorski declared. 

He also mentioned a recent amendment to immigration legislation that stipulates migrants attempting to reach Poland via Russia and Belarus can continue to apply for asylum in Poland, but only at consulate buildings in Moscow and Minsk. 

The anti-migration fencing was completed in June 2022 and now spans a 116-mile-long stretch of the Polish-Belarusian border, but was subsequently upgraded with surveillance equipment, including CCTV cameras, heat and motion sensors. 

The five-metre-high metal fence scythes through the Polish countryside, covered with miles upon miles of barbs and topped with razor wire. 

Border checkpoints are also reinforced with huge concrete slabs, each weighing more than 1.5 tonnes, along with secondary walls and barbed-wire fencing. 

Sikorski spoke to BBCR4 amid discussions about soaring illegal migration figures in Britain, with 20,000 migrants said to have arrived in Britain via small boats crossing the Channel so far in 2025. 

Now, Polish authorities are proceeding full steam ahead with a new project – East Shield – which aims to transform its entire frontier with Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad into one gigantic, closely surveilled fortification.

The 400-mile-long construction, announced last year and targeted for completion in 2028, arguably constitutes the single most significant national security investment in Poland’s post-war history at more than £2 billion. 

It was green-lit by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine, and Moscow and Minsk’s so-called hybrid war tactics.

In addition to the barbed wire-topped fencing, concrete reinforcements and secondary defences, the East Shield will see strips of land turned into minefields and littered with anti-tank fortifications including steel and concrete hedgehogs, ‘dragon’s teeth’ obstacles and deep trenches, along with drone defence equipment.

This multi-layered line of defence is expected to extend more than 200 metres back from the initial border wall.   

Behind these defences, Warsaw is constructing bunkers, firing posts and other military infrastructure in the forests, woods and small villages spanning the length of the country to provide yet more resistance should the deterrent fail. 

According to details provided by the government, the programme will also employ state-of-the-art surveillance equipment, including imagery intelligence (IMINT), signals intelligence (SIGINT), and acoustic monitoring to improve situational awareness of the would-be battlefield.