Poland is keeping three border crossings to Belarus open because they are important routes for the transport of goods between the EU and China. But the trade is also benefiting Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko.
A sign on the Polish-Belarusian border, near the river Bug, forbids border crossings.
Kuba Stezycki / Reuters
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This is where the European Union ends. Oversized bags are hastily maneuvered onto two buses that are heading for the Belarusian city of Brest, 3 kilometers away. The platform is soon empty again. The Belarusian part of the station is barricaded with fences and Plexiglas. «Passenger traffic to Belarus is suspended until further notice,» announces a red neon sign at the customs office of Terespol station, the easternmost city in Poland. To go any farther, travelers must use the bus instead of the train.
Although the station grounds are mostly deserted, there are plenty of police, railroad officials and border guards around. Tensions are running high on NATO’s eastern flank. The Polish border with Belarus, the Kremlin ally that has been under authoritarian governance since 1994, is formed by the Bug river. This is about two kilometers farther to the east, and can be crossed on foot. But would be better not to go that far, the railway police advise.
Closed border crossings
Freight trains from Chinese state-owned logistics company Yuxinou stand waiting on the station’s tracks. Two of them drive off, headed for the other side of the river. The fact that there is still so much freight traffic between Terespol in Poland and Brest in Belarus is surprising, given the bilateral sanctions that the EU and Poland have imposed against the regime in Minsk.
Belarus is paying for President Alexander Lukashenko’s bloody crackdown on the protests that broke out after falsified elections in August 2020, as well as for the dictator’s hybrid warfare tactics. For instance, in the summer of 2021, Lukashenko’s government arranged for refugees to be flown into Minsk and then transported to the border. In addition, the Belarusian regime has supported Moscow in its annexation of Crimea in violation of international law, and in its war of aggression against Ukraine. Lukashenko even made his country’s territory available as a staging area for the Russian army.
Poland has closed almost all border crossings to Belarus for trains, trucks and cars. Terespol is an exception. It has become a center of cross-border goods and passenger traffic, where freight trains and trucks can still cross. There is additionally one bridge open for cars and buses. This has become a bottleneck for passenger traffic, with waiting times of up to 72 hours.
Kacper Pempel / Reuters
Freight traffic to China continues
In autumn 2021, Poland’s government, at that time led by the conservative Law and Justice party, imposed a state of emergency that erected no-go zones along the 418-kilometer border with Belarus. These no-go zones have since been significantly reduced in size by Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s new liberal government. The earlier conservative government also erected a 5.5-meter metal mesh fence as a means of gaining control over the surge in refugees from the Middle East, Asia and Africa who were seeking to cross the border, a migrant crisis that was artificially instigated by Lukashenko.
In June 2024, President Andrzej Duda visited Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. This helped to ease the border tensions, as Duda recently said in an interview with the NZZ. Duda indicated that he had threatened to close the border completely if large numbers of refugees continued to be smuggled to the Polish border via Minsk and Moscow. «I asked Xi to use his influence in Moscow and Minsk in this matter,» Duda said in the interview.
The two freight border crossings in Terespol, which are still open, are important gateways from China’s so-called new Silk Road via Kazakhstan to the EU. A second train route takes Chinese container trains across the Siemianówka reservoir on the Polish-Belarusian border, 100 kilometers to the north.
Despite the sanctions, there has been no decline in rail transport volumes between China and the EU relative to 2023. On the contrary, according to the Polish State Railways service, a total of 12,252 freight trains were processed in 2023, while this total had already reached 7,012 in the first half of 2024. According to the Eurasian Rail Index, container transport volumes between Poland and China doubled in the first half of 2024. However, rail transport accounts for just under 3% of trade volumes between the EU and China.
Residents oppose sanctions
In Terespol, a town with a population of 6,000, residents appear anything but enthusiastic about the sanctions. «The politicians in Warsaw think they have come up with something clever, but they have forgotten the people,» says a passerby in the city center. In the 1990s, the town focused its economy on serving cross-border shoppers from Brest and the surrounding area. «Things were looking up until the COVID-19 pandemic and the Belarusian protests in 2020. Then there was an abrupt collapse,» says the manager of the Galeria Smakow restaurant.
Like many in Terespol, the manager has a high opinion of Belarusians, some of whom are her regular customers. However, the sanctions have had a huge impact on the small town. Poland’s state-owned railroad freight company PKP Cargo was considered the best employer for a quarter of a century after the fall of communism in 1989. But the sanctions have resulted in many layoffs. «The young people are migrating to Warsaw or going abroad straight away,» says the manager.
Today, there are only a few jobs in the truck terminal near the border village of Kukuryki, just 10 kilometers to the north. The oversized facility rises up from the harvested, gray wheat fields like a giant UFO. It was built during the late 1990s for far more optimistic times. According to industry reports, around 40,000 trucks per month were handled in both directions in the first half of 2024.
Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters
Only a few tables are occupied in the truck stop restaurant. Almost all the hungry truck drivers come from Belarus. But no one wants to talk about why the kilometer-long lines of trucks once common here have disappeared. The fear is palpable. «The damn sanctions are to blame,» says an angry driver from Minsk. He then gets up and leaves.
Border crossings a domestic political issue
In Warsaw, domestic politics sometimes produce radical ideas. For example, in a TV interview in June, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski threatened that Poland would close all of its border crossings with Belarus unless Lukashenko released well over 1,000 political prisoners. This drew heavy criticism within Poland, especially given the large Polish minority in Belarus. Sikorski subsequently backpedaled.
Since then, Poland has sought to refrain from rash actions, in part for Ukraine’s sake. Rocking the boat in this way could disrupt relations with China. After all, Xi is being trusted to mediate peace in Ukraine by putting pressure on Putin.
Near the border, the railroad bridge over the river Bug toward Belarus, which is guarded by a heavily armed soldier, shimmers in the evening sun. Across the river, the apartment blocks of a nearby neighborhood are visible. But as soon as I pull out my camera, a border patrol jeep comes roaring toward me. The soldier takes my personal details, and demands that I delete any photos. As we say goodbye, he says: «By the way, you can get picturesque views of the Bug legally somewhere else. There’s a state-approved hiking trail that runs along it.»
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Publish date : 2024-12-30 22:50:00
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