Bayraktar's first combat use and Poland's border buildup, 26 October 2021
A look back at two security developments reported on 26 October 2021, in eastern Ukraine and on the Polish-Belarusian frontier.
What happened on 26 October 2021 on two of Europe's tense frontiers? Reports from that day pointed to a first for Ukraine's armed forces and a troop increase in Poland.
In the area of the Joint Forces Operation in eastern Ukraine, the Turkish-made Bayraktar reconnaissance and strike unmanned system was used in combat for the first time, as reported at the time.
The same day, Poland raised the number of soldiers deployed on its border with Belarus 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 increase followed an incident over the preceding weekend in which a group of 70 migrants stormed a section of the border and two border guards were taken to hospital.
The two developments were separate, but both concerned the security of states on the European Union's eastern edge, in the context of the 2021 Belarus–European Union border crisis.
