A Somali woman pushed her bandaged hand between two vertical bars of a thick metal barrier separating Belarus from Poland as she and four other women looked toward the European Union.

They nodded gratefully when a Polish humanitarian worker called across a stretch of land as wide as a single-lane road and promised to help. Polish soldiers patrolled nearby.

The green stretch of Bialowieza forest that stretches along the border is one of the flashpoints of a months-long conflict between Belarus and its main backer and ally Russia on the one hand, and the 27-member European Union on the other, which has seen a huge influx of migrants towards the border in the run-up to the EU parliamentary elections in June.

WHAT HAPPENED AT THE BORDER?

According to Polish authorities, the number of attempts to illegally cross the border from Belarus into the EU member state Poland has risen rapidly in recent months. At the beginning of the year there were only a handful per day. Today there are almost 400 per day.

Poland’s border guards have also denounced the increasingly aggressive behaviour of some migrants on the Belarusian side of the border. They have posted videos online in which some of them throw stones, logs and even burning wood at Polish troops from behind the fence.

There have been cases of soldiers and guards being hospitalized, and some needing stitches after being injured by stabbers. Near the village of Dubicze Cerkiewne, a migrant reached between the bars of the more than five-meter-high barrier and stabbed a soldier in the ribs, according to officials.

For several years, EU authorities have accused Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko of using migration as a weapon, luring people to his country to give them easier access to the Union than the more dangerous routes across the Mediterranean. Yet migrants have died, some of them buried in Muslim and Christian cemeteries in Poland.

WHAT DOES POLAND SAY?

Poland sees the new push at the border as an attempt orchestrated by Russia and Belarus to stir up xenophobic sentiments with the aim of gaining more support for far-right parties in Europe.

Poland and the EU say the migrants, who have travelled to former Soviet states from as far away as the Middle East and Africa, have become puppets in Russia and Belarus’ efforts to destabilise Europe. Europe helped Ukraine defend itself against the Russian invasion more than two years ago.

The $405 million metal barrier was built in 2022 under Poland’s previous conservative government along a 177-kilometer stretch of border and is part of an effort to stem the large influx of migrants that many in the EU want to reduce.

The barrier was an argument for anti-immigration parties that often support Russia or are supported by Russia.

The government of Polish entrist Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who took office in December promising a new pro-European government after eight years of stormy conservative rule, has announced increased security measures and said it must protect the EU border.

“We are not dealing with any asylum seekers here, we are dealing with a coordinated, very efficient operation on many levels aimed at breaking through the Polish border and destabilising the country,” Tusk said during a visit to the border guards.

WHAT IS THE POLITICAL ENDGAME?

According to Poland, Moscow’s alleged aim of flooding the EU with a flood of migrants would provide political ammunition to far-right and anti-immigration parties in countries such as France, Germany and Italy.

Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski claimed at a meeting in Bialystok, eastern Poland, that many of the migrants trying to cross the Polish border are “people with Russian visas” – meaning they were allowed to enter Russia at some point before heading to Belarus and then west.

“They were at least encouraged and perhaps even recruited for this operation, so we know who is behind this operation,” he said. “It is intended to have a political effect – to strengthen the far right, which promises to destroy the European Union from within.”

The Interior Ministry in neighboring Germany, the main destination for many migrants, has noted a rising trend in illegal migration from Russia and Belarus. It attributed the increase in part to increased measures by Russian security agencies against illegal migrants following a deadly terrorist attack on a Moscow concert hall in March.

Critics have presented evidence that ruthless Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has been responsible for all manner of malfeasance against the West in recent years, including election rigging, disinformation and fake news campaigns, computer hacking and the alleged poisoning of the Kremlin chief’s enemies abroad.

Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhnaovskaya said Lukashenko’s government was trying to “blackmail the EU and scare it with waves of uncontrollable migrants.”

“This is where Lukashenko’s and Putin’s interests coincide,” she said.

WHAT ABOUT THE MIGRANTS?

Caught between the fronts are the migrants themselves, including many women and children, stuck in the inhospitable swamps and forests along the border. At the end of May, volunteers on the Polish side of the border were seen giving water to an exhausted Algerian man.

Aid activists criticize Tusk’s government for its tough border policy. He acknowledged that many soldiers felt a conflict between the need to protect the border and compassion for humanitarian workers who wanted to “help others in need.”

Migrants who make it can apply for international protection within the EU, which is granted in exceptional cases. Some are also deported to their home countries.

Olga Cielemencka, an activist from the Voluntary Humanitarian Emergency Service Podlaskie who promised help to the Somali woman with the bandaged hand, said her group was trying to offer advice and help to the migrants.

“But our options are very limited,” she said. “There is not much we can do.”