A Polish soldier patrolling the European Union’s eastern border with authoritarian Belarus has deserted and asked for political asylum there, Polish and Belarusian officials said on Friday.
Tensions on the Poland-Belarus border have been high for months as thousands of migrants have tried to cross into EU member Poland in a crisis the West and the Belarusian regime blame on each other.
Belarus’s border guard service said a Polish soldier was stopped by its guards and that he “asked for political asylum in the country”.
It said the soldier — who it named as Emil Czeczko — was stopped on Thursday near the Tushemlya border checkpoint.
Regime-controlled media then aired an interview with the soldier, who said he “deserted from the army through barbed wire”.
“I took off my uniform and without my clothes, naked, ran towards Belarus,” he said, according to a Russian translation.
He said it was “impossible to remain silent about what is happening on Polish territory”.
The Belarusian border guards said he was opposed to Poland’s hard line against migration.
National television in Belarus is tightly controlled by the state.
Earlier this year, it aired an interview with Belarusian anti-government activist Roman Protasevich after his plane was forced to land in Minsk. His family and campaigners said it was conducted under duress.
The Polish military later issued a statement confirming there had been “a shameful, one-time case of desertion”.
“He crossed the Belarus border and insulted the Polish military,” it said.
Polish Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said the soldier “had serious problems with the law and had submitted his resignation from the army”.
“He should never have been assigned to the border service. I requested an explanation for who was responsible for this,” he said on Twitter.
The army later said three of his superiors had been dismissed.
Since the summer, Poland has sent thousands of soldiers to the border to help prevent large numbers of migrants from crossing over from Belarus.
International rights organisations have criticised Poland for its treatment of migrants and creation of a controversial emergency zone along its border.
© Agence France-Presse