Polish army kicks off Operation Safe West on border with Germany

The Polish army kicks off Operation Safe West on the border with Germany. It has been deployed as checks on the borders with Germany and Lithuania.

Warsaw is very concerned about the growth of migration flows from these countries. Local residents have encountered another escalation of an extremely alarming nature.

Tomasz Stefański, Deputy Mayor of Słubice (Poland):

"It's a very sad situation. We fought for so long to be in the Schengen zone. The European Union was enlarged in 2004. And we were happy about that, but today we see border controls on the German-Polish border again. In fact, Poland does not have a migration crisis, we have no problems with migrants at all. This is just a cynical political game by right-wing extremists, which forced the government to introduce checks. These are not facts, this is stupidity."

The Ministry of Internal Affairs reports the first dangers of increased control, however, in the Lithuanian direction. On the border with Lithuania, Polish border guards stopped an EU citizen who brought four illegal migrants from Afghanistan. They will be returned by the Lithuanian side.

The Poles established border control for 30 days, but immediately warned that the period would be extended.