A Polish military court has acquitted a soldier who fired 12 warning shots at a group of migrants illegally crossing the border from Belarus, ruling that he was fulfilling his constitutional duty to defend Poland’s frontier — in a verdict that has reignited debate about the use of force at one of Europe’s most volatile frontlines.
The Military Garrison Court in Lublin cleared 25-year-old former private Karol S., from the 1st Warsaw Armoured Brigade, of all charges on Wednesday. He had faced prosecution for exceeding his authority and endangering lives during an incident on 25 March 2024 near the village of Dubicze Cerkiewne, where migrants had cut through a border barrier and used ladders to cross illegally into Poland. The soldier pleaded not guilty, saying he had clearly shouted “Polish army, stop, or I’ll shoot” before firing warning shots that he said did not endanger others.
Judge Lieutenant Colonel Ryszard Hunek sided with the soldier entirely. “It should be clearly stated that every soldier has a constitutional obligation to protect the border of Poland,” he said, as quoted by Gazeta Wyborcza. The judge noted that Karol S. had acted in accordance with his training as a qualified marksman, firing upward along a border road, and that none of the Polish Border Guard officers or other soldiers present at the scene had felt threatened. The judge added pointedly that if the soldier had wanted to kill anyone, he would have done so.
Prosecutors had argued that Karol S. had lost his military status while under Border Guard command during the incident, and that his shots had posed an immediate risk to both the migrants and to Polish personnel nearby. The court rejected both arguments in their entirety. According to Notes from Poland and TVP World, the acquittal was greeted as a vindication by those who argued soldiers defending the border against orchestrated illegal crossings deserved legal protection rather than prosecution.
The case sits within a broader and increasingly dangerous context. Polish officials have been explicit that the pressure on the border is not spontaneous migration but a Russian-backed Belarusian operation designed to destabilise NATO from within. “We are at war,” Poland’s Ambassador Krzysztof Olendzki told Fox News Digital. “Not only Poland, but also all the countries of the eastern flank of NATO. The war is exercised by our adversaries, by Belarus and Russia, who are using migrants as an asymmetric weapon against NATO countries.”
Belarus began pushing migrants — primarily from the Middle East and Africa — towards Poland’s eastern border in 2021 in what the EU and NATO have characterised as retaliation for sanctions imposed on Minsk following its violent crackdown on political opposition. The peak came in 2021 with nearly 40,000 illegal crossing attempts recorded. By 2025 the figure had dropped to around 29,869, with a further decline reported in 2026. Poland has responded by constructing a fortified border wall and deploying thousands of troops and border guards.
The human cost on the Polish side has been real. In June 2024, Polish soldier Mateusz died after being stabbed in the chest by a migrant who reached through the border barrier bars — a death that prompted Prime Minister Donald Tusk to write: “A young soldier, Mateusz, gave his life in the defense of Poland’s border.” In a separate recent incident, a Molotov cocktail was thrown from the Belarusian side of the border at Polish officers attempting to prevent a crossing.
Wednesday’s acquittal delivers a clear judicial signal: soldiers who follow their training and rules of engagement while defending the Polish border will not face criminal sanction for doing so. Whether that message will settle the wider debate about use-of-force protocols — or intensify it — remains to be seen.
