British troops helping Poland to fortify border with Belarus

British troops are helping the Polish army strengthen its border with Belarus in a show of support as Minsk sends waves of migrants towards the country. 

It comes as Russia dispatched paratroopers to the Belarusian side of the border for snap drills on Friday, not far from where hundreds of Syrians, Iraqis, Yemenis and others have been camping in hopes of crossing into Poland since earlier this week. 

In an effort to tackle the crisis, Warsaw has moved 15,000 troops to the frontier, put up a fence topped with barbed wire and approved the construction of a wall.

Poland’s defence minister, Mariusz Blaszczak, said British personnel have now started a “reconnaissance” mission with their Polish peers on the tense frontier. A source confirmed to the Telegraph that they were from the Royal Engineers. 

“Our soldiers will co-operate in strengthening the fence of the Polish-Belarusian border," said Mr Blaszczak on Friday.

The deployment was a sign of allied friendship between the UK and Poland, the British Ministry of Defence said. 

“A small team of UK Armed Forces personnel have deployed following agreement with the Polish Government to explore how we can provide engineering support to address the ongoing situation at the Belarus border," a spokesperson for the ministry added. 

The deployment is limited to providing engineering support, according to PA. 

Russian paratroopers sent to Belarusian border

Moscow - which has been accused of orchestrating the crisis to destabilise Europe - put on a similar show of support for its ally, Minsk, with joint military drills at the border. 

The Russian defence ministry released a slickly produced video that showed paratroopers from both countries leaping from planes and running across open fields before launching rounds of machine-gun fire in the woods.

But Moscow later it admitted two of its soldiers died because of parachute failure in strong winds. 

Nato was quick to warn that it was watching the area closely.

"We will remain vigilant against the risk of further escalation and provocation by Belarus at its borders with Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia, and will continue to monitor the implications for the security of the alliance," it said in a statement.

Nato "strongly condemns the continued instrumentalisation of irregular migration artificially created by Belarus as part of hybrid actions targeted against Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia for political purposes," it added.

In a separate incident on Friday, Royal Air Force fighter jets were scrambled to respond to two Russian Tu-160 Blackjack strategic bombers "approaching the UK area of interest".

The Russian bombers did not enter UK airspace, the Ministry of Defence said in a statement.

Migrants stuck on the border

The crisis on the border between Belarus and Poland has led to thousands of migrants from the Middle East being stuck in the middle in a fearful game of cat and mouse, unwanted by either country and often unable to seek help despite near-freezing temperatures. 

Polish authorities said there are some 4,000 migrants waiting on the country's border with Belarus, with a further 15,000 believed to be in Minsk still waiting to be transported to the frontier. 

The Polish government has taken a hard line on the migrants, passing a “push back” law to allow police, soldiers and border guards to force illegal entrants back towards Belarus. Meanwhile, Belarusian border guards and civilian clothed thugs are also violently preventing anyone who has crossed from turning back. 

The World Health Organization said on Friday it was "very concerned" about their plight.

Bans on plane tickets

The EU is now focusing on stopping people from flying into Belarus so easily as they have been doing since summer. 

Turkish Airlines on Friday agreed to suspend the sale of one-way tickets for Middle Eastern migrants, banning Syrian, Yemeni and Iraqi citizens from boarding flights to Minsk. 

After talks with Brussels, Iraq has extended a ban on flights from its airports put in place in September. 

“We must build a national coalition against the use of people as political pawns,” said Margaritas Schinas, the European Commission vice-president responsible for migration.

“It is very clear what is happening, people are being sold a lie by smugglers, International smuggling networks, who fly them to Minsk and create the impression that they will ensure safe passage to Europe.”

Baghdad also announced it was drawing up lists of those among the hundreds of stuck Iraqis who wish to be repatriated voluntarily.

"We are ready to organise more than one trip to provide an urgent response to anyone wanting to come home voluntarily," foreign ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Sahaf said.

Kamala Harris, the US vice president, said on Friday that she believed Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko was "engaged in very troubling activity" by sending people into the EU illegally.

She added that the US was "very concerned" about the crisis: "The eyes of the world and its leaders are watching what is happening there."

Russia troop buildup near Ukraine

Meanwhile, experts have said a massing of Russian troops near the Ukrainian border is "not routine", indicating Moscow could be preparing for an operation "in the coming months".

Social media footage and satellite images have shown a large amount of weaponry and military vehicles on the move across Russia recently and the US has privately warned European allies that Russia could be plotting to invade Ukraine in a repeat of the 2014 annexation of Crimea.

Dozens of tanks have been shipped across the country to Russia’s west some 250km away from Ukraine, according to Ruslan Leviev, founder of Russian forensic investigative group Conflict Intelligence Team, which has been documenting unusual military activity in recent weeks.

“This is about building up forces near the border,” he told the Telegraph. “It is hard to find an explanation for that transfer.”

The European Commission said the build-up of Russian troops near the Ukrainian border is “really very concerning”, and will be discussed on Monday at a meeting of EU foreign ministers.

Ursula von der Leyen, the Commission’s president, has already discussed the situation on the frontier, near the annexed Crimea, with US President Joe Biden.

“The European Union is a direct neighbour of Ukraine and as such is watching the situation there very, very closely,” a European Commission spokesman said. "The information we have gathered so far is really very concerning.”

The External Action Service, the European Union’s foreign affairs arm, believes the Russian build-up is a breach of international rules relating to military exercises, because international partners were not informed by the Kremlin.

At least 60 tanks, supported by infantry fighting vehicles and self-propelled howitzers were deployed earlier this week from the Moscow regions to a station in the south-west about 250km away from the Ukrainian border, the US intelligence firm Janes said on Thursday.

The new equipment is believed to belong to various 1st Guards Tank Army units, which are now nearly 500km from their usual permanent bases.

"The unit has been sighted well outside the army's normal areas of operation during a gap in the Russian military's summer and winter training cycles when Russia does not normally conduct large-scale drills," according to an analysis from Janes, a global agency for open-source defence intelligence.

"The equipment also appears to be moving mainly around the border area with a high degree of secrecy, mainly at night to minimise sightings by the public."

The equipment seen includes a battalion of T-80U main battle tanks (MBTs) and a battalion of T-72B3 MBTs, according to Janes.

Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at the Virginia-based analysis group CNA, agreed that the ongoing Russian military deployments were suspicious.

“These are not routine drills, certification checks, and one would struggle to come up with innocuous explanations for what is being observed,” he tweeted earlier this week.

"It does appear that the Russian military has been ordered to position itself for a possible operation in the coming months," he added.

"We're very concerned about some of the irregular movements of forces that we see on Ukraine's borders," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday.

"It would be a serious mistake for Russia to engage in a repeat of what it did in 2014," he added.

European diplomats have admitted something is afoot but have dampened suggestions it could lead to an invasion.

"US intelligence deviates from EU/UK intel on this... There is a build-up of troops though,” a diplomatic source told the Telegraph.

Moscow denies Ukraine invasion plan

The Kremlin on Friday denied that it was planning to send soldiers into Ukraine.

"Such headlines are nothing but a futile and baseless attempt to escalate tensions,” said Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman.

"We have repeatedly said that the movement of our armed forces on our territory should not be a cause for concern," he added. “Russia does not pose a threat to anyone.”

He described recent Russian military activity - including scrambling a fighter jet to intercept a British plane that had to change its course away from Crimea - as a response to Western provocations.

“We can’t be indifferent to what is happening. We have to be alert,” he said.

The build-up near Ukraine echoes similar Russian activity this spring, when an estimated 100,000 troops moved close to the border, prompting fears of an imminent invasion before Vladimir Putin ordered them back.

However, some believe this is a step up from that activity. 

Russia “has different intentions this time", Michael Turner, a Republican congressman who sits on the House’s armed services and intelligence committee, told Politico on Thursday.

“This is very different from what we saw in April,” he said.

Senior Whitehall sources have told The Telegraph that the Government is concerned about the reports and that there is "twitchiness" and "anxiety" among officials.

Russia has been locked in a simmering separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine since 2014 when Moscow threw its weight behind pro-Russian rebels fighting government troops.

Moscow has denied any role in that war despite overwhelming evidence of Russian troops' involvement.

US faces dilemma over involvement 

Joe Biden is increasingly facing calls from Republicans to take action.

In a statement earlier this week, Congressman Mike Rogers, the most senior Republican on the House Armed Services and Intelligence Committees, said: “Putin has spent months deliberately escalating tensions with Ukraine.

"President Biden must send a clear message to Moscow that the United States and our Nato allies will defend our free European neighbours against Russian aggression."

Mike Turner, another Republican congressman on the committee, said: "Russia continues to undermine the international community. This most recent build-up at the Ukrainian border demonstrates Putin’s desire to weaken democracies and his disregard for Nato’s call for disarmament."

In a letter to Mr Biden last week. the two Republicans called on Mr Biden to send troops and put in place an "appropriate US military presence and posture in the region."

But any deployments will be stiffly opposed by Moscow. 

Britain's most senior military officer said that there was now an even "greater risk" of accidental war with Russia than there was at any stage of the Cold War.

General Sir Nick Carter, chief of the defence staff, told Times Radio that many of the traditional diplomatic mechanisms that existed decades ago with Russia were no longer in place, meaning the threat of "escalation leading to miscalculation" was a "real challenge". 

Two US warships - the USS Porter, a destroyer armed with Tomahawk missiles, and the command ship USS Mount Whitney - arrived at the Black Sea port of Batumi, Georgia this week.

On Friday, the Russian military said it was tracking US naval ships in the Black Sea and accused Washington of studying the region as a potential theatre of war.

Russia “views the aggressive military activity of the United States in the Black Sea region as something that poses a threat to regional security and strategic stability," said Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on Friday.

Moscow said it had detected six flights by Nato spy planes in airspace over the Black Sea, part of what it described as intensifying air reconnaissance by Western military aircraft.

“NATO is building up its military presence in Europe,” Mr Shoigu added.