The trucks stretched a 60-kilometer line as they approached the exit from Poland into Belarus, a situation corroborated by a Polish publication, Rzeczpospolita. The scene at the border was marked by unprecedented delays, with drivers reporting a waiting period that could reach roughly 63 hours before any movement through the crossing began. At the core of the bottleneck stood a single checkpoint, Koroshchina, on the Polish-Belarusian frontier, creating a squeeze that left about two thousand trucks stranded in line. Observers from the transport sector, including Tadeusz Gajovnik, head of the National Association of Carriers in Biala Podlaska, noted that the backlog was not limited to Polish haulers alone. Carriers from Serbia and Moldova were also visible among those awaiting passage, adding to the international scale of the disruption.
On February 9, authorities in Warsaw made a decisive move by suspending operations at the Bobrovniki checkpoint. This action arrived against a backdrop of shifting border policies in the region. Earlier developments had seen Belarusian authorities impose restrictions on movements at Belarusian-Lithuanian border crossings starting on the evening of February 21. In response, the Polish Ministry of Internal Affairs announced its own measures, aiming to limit the flow of Belarusian trucks at the Kukuryki crossing and across border points between Belarus and Latvia for Polish carriers. The evolving restrictions underscored a broader tightening of cross-border transport within the area and a tighter control regime affecting multiple routes.
In a separate note from the Belarusian border authorities, it was communicated that trucks registered within the European Union could still cross the Polish-Belarusian border. This clarification helped outline which vehicles were deemed eligible for passage under the updated border management framework, even as other corridors faced tighter controls. The overall situation illustrated a complex, highly dynamic border environment, where technical changes to checkpoint operations and policy restrictions directly influenced the daily realities of freight movement, driver schedules, and trucking company planning across the region.