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Polish Interior Minister Marcin KierwiΕski reported that on Friday, officers of the Podlasie border guard discovered a tunnel connecting the Belarusian side of the border with Poland. This is the second tunnel discovered in Poland this year.
Russian state news agency TASS said authorities were still investigating who dug the tunnel and when, but Warsaw accused Belarus of helping illegal migrants cross the border. It remains unclear whether Belarus has anything to do with the tunnel.
From 2021 onwards, Belarusian President Aliaksandr Lukashenka has promised to make it easier for nationals of third countries to obtain Belarusian visas and a route to Europe.
As a result, many entered Belarus in the hope of reaching the EU via Poland. However, Polish troops and border guards pushed them back, leaving many stranded between the two sides.
Lukashenka denied allegations that Belarus, together with Russia, is deliberately sending illegal migrants to Europe. “They believe that Belarus is to blame for the migrant crisis. But we are not at all responsible,” TASS quoted Lukashenka as saying.
Minsk supported the EU’s efforts to combat illegal immigration until sanctions were imposed on Belarus. “We will not protect you like before. We will not intercept them (migrants) at the border like before,” Lukashenka said.
In 2025, Poland completed an electric border fence with artificial intelligence that detects the smallest signals along its entire border with Belarus. The cost amounted to $136.6 million, according to TASS.
Smuggling tunnel discovered on Serbia-Hungary border
But Poland is not alone in tackling tunnel smuggling. Hungary faced the same problem some time ago. Hungarian police discovered a 24-meter-long tunnel on the border with Serbia near the Hungarian town of Morajar. This was reported by Serbian media in June 2020.
The tunnel is the third in Hungary to be discovered in this region in just one year, Radio Television Serbia (RTS) reported.
In 2019, Hungarian police discovered two similar tunnels used by migrants to cross into Western Europe from the Serbian side. One of the tunnels near the village of Asotarom was 34 meters long. 44 migrants and one smuggler were arrested. The second tunnel in the village of Chiqueria was 21.7 meters long.
Hungarian President Viktor OrbΓ‘n has long called for new laws to curb the influx of illegal immigrants. At the height of the migrant crisis in 2015, Hungary installed a barbed wire fence on its southern border to stem the flow of people to Western Europe.
Across Europe, countries are beginning to take stricter measures to curb illegal immigration. In parallel with strengthening border controls, Germany is discussing the establishment of deportation centers in third countries and secondary centers within the country. This was recently discussed by Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt with colleagues in Munich.