Poland Guards Its Kaliningrad Border
Poland sent counterterrorism police and special forces troops to its border with Russia's Kaliningrad exclave after intelligence warnings of sabotage, and Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the operation may already have stopped a provocation.
A Polish border post where Poland, Lithuania and Russia's Kaliningrad region meet, November 2025.Illustration by The Good Times, based on a photo by Quintin Soloviev / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
Poland has deployed extra police, counterterrorism units and troops from its GROM special forces along its border with Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave wedged between Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic Sea. National police chief Marek Boroń said the operation runs until at least November 8, with a command center at police headquarters in Warsaw coordinating the police, army, border guard and intelligence services. Polish military intelligence and allied agencies had warned of possible sabotage and provocations in the first half of November, including incursions by armed groups. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said suspicious movements were seen near the border overnight, including people carrying flashlights, and that the fast response may have prevented an attempted provocation. "Of course, we will never be able to completely confirm that," he said. Polish authorities have published no evidence of a specific plan. Kaliningrad sits beside the Suwałki Corridor, the short stretch of border between Poland and Lithuania that is the only land link between the Baltic NATO members and the rest of the alliance.
Police sent additional officers, including counterterrorism forces, to the northeastern provinces of Warmia-Masuria and Podlaskie, along with troops from GROM, the military's elite special forces unit, CBS News reported. Boroń said the operation began Monday and will run until at least November 8. Police said the goal is to protect the public, detect suspicious activity early and prevent attacks on critical infrastructure.
"Police are putting security measures in place around the Kaliningrad region in anticipation of possible incidents that could lead to acts of sabotage," Boroń told the broadcaster RMF. "This is based on information we also have from external security services." A police spokeswoman said details of the operation are confidential.
The deputy police commander had earlier put officers on full readiness from November 2 to 8. Police headquarters later said the order was related to threats of sabotage and subversion, and Boroń wrote to officers that it responded to attempts by foreign intelligence services from the east to destabilize the country, Notes from Poland reported.
Tusk said suspicious movements were observed overnight near Kaliningrad, including individuals with flashlights close to the border. "We very quickly mobilized the necessary security forces and means on site, and we successfully prevented any attempted acts of provocation, if that was the intention," he said. He said intelligence had pointed for weeks to possible "acts of diversion or more serious provocation" against the European Union, including "the intrusion of armed individuals into Polish territory."
By Tuesday afternoon, Polish authorities had not published evidence of a specific plan.
Kaliningrad borders only NATO members Poland and Lithuania, with the Baltic Sea to the west, and is home to Russian military forces. East of it lies the Suwałki Corridor, where Poland and Lithuania share a short border between Russian and Belarusian territory, the only land route connecting the Baltic NATO states with the rest of the alliance.
Poland has blamed Russia for a string of incidents this year. A Russian military helicopter crossed from Kaliningrad in September and stayed in Polish airspace for about 42 seconds, and in July a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile entered Polish airspace from Ukraine and came down in a field in eastern Poland, Notes from Poland reported. Polish officials blamed Russia directly for an arson attack on a Starlink ground station in September. Ken McCallum, the head of Britain's domestic intelligence agency MI5, said in October that Moscow was escalating hybrid warfare while "being careful to stay below the NATO Article 5 threshold," the line that would trigger the alliance's collective defense.