NATO's Russia Border To Be Reinforced with Trenches, Bunkers

Poland's defense minister has announced that the country will expand defenses along its border with Russia and Belarus as NATO nations warn of new covert and hybrid attacks by Moscow and its allies in Minsk.

Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz told Radio Zet on Thursday that Poland's existing metal barrier along the border with Belarus will be strengthened, while a wider plan to install new defensive structures along the frontiers with both Belarus and Russia is underway.

"We are mending the barrier on the Polish-Belarusian border, we are strengthening this barrier," Kosiniak-Kamysz said, as quoted by the Associated Press. "The spending on these purposes is the highest in [Poland's] history."

Asked if Poland should start building bunkers, ditches and trenches on the borders—as fellow NATO state Estonia is now doing—Kosiniak-Kamysz replied: "Yes, the entire plan is already being prepared."

"We are doing this already de facto," he added. "I treat this question a little more broadly, as a strengthening of the border.

"There is a military group in Podlasie, in the Lublin, Masovian and Warmian-Masurian regions and an army presence supporting the border guards."

The NATO states of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Norway and Finland have all been grappling with migrant flows coming from Belarus and Russia in recent years, movements they say represent a Moscow-Minsk weaponization of immigrants to destabilize Western governments and societies.

The flows have largely been curbed by new border fences and other infrastructure, but sporadic attempts to cross—seemingly facilitated by Belarusian and Russian authorities—continue. The migration spikes are considered a relatively new element within Russia's expansive hybrid warfare toolbox. Moscow and Minsk have denied any responsibility.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk this week called a meeting of the Secret Services Council to discuss "alleged Russian and Belarusian influence in the Polish power apparatus in previous years."

Meanwhile, NATO frontier nations are preparing for the conventional threat posed by Moscow's forces. Russian units traditionally arrayed along alliance borders have mostly been sent to the bloody battlefields of Ukraine, where allied officials have told Newsweek some formations have sustained casualties of up to 40 percent.

But the Kremlin has launched a massive effort to reconstitute its mauled army, and NATO officials are warning that Russia's military could return to its pre-war strength within less than five years. The reformed force will be girded by a wealth of hard-earned experience.

NATO is strengthening its military posture along the eastern front with defenses and new forces, having dropped its "tripwire" concept—by which ground would be ceded to an attacking Russian force while allies prepared to respond—in favor of defending "every inch" of territory.