Bayraktar combat debut and Poland's border build-up, October 2021
A look back at two security developments reported on 26 October 2021, in eastern Ukraine and on the Polish-Belarusian frontier.
What was happening on Europe's eastern edges as 28 October 2021 approached? Two security developments, both reported on 26 October 2021, set the tone in the days before that date.
In the area of the Joint Forces operation in eastern Ukraine, the Turkish Bayraktar reconnaissance-strike unmanned aerial system was used in combat for the first time, as reported on 26 October 2021.
The same day, on the border between Belarus and Poland, Poland raised the number of soldiers deployed there from 6,000 to about 10,000. The aim was to stop further illegal crossings by Middle Eastern migrants, who, according to the reports, were being flown in by the Belarusian government. The troop increase followed an incident over the previous weekend in which a group of 70 migrants stormed a section of the border and two border guards were hospitalised.
The two developments were separate, but both were part of the security picture along the European Union's eastern and Ukraine's own front line in late October 2021.
