The Polish Border Guard stated that a few days ago shots were fired for the first time from the territory of Belarus; a service car was damaged, and it is not known for certain which weapon was used.
The border guard added that stones are thrown at the patrol almost daily.
Great neighbors.
Caution: The English article uses the word bullet which is misleading.
Source article partial translation:
For now, it is unknown who or what fired at the Polish officers. What is known is that it was an object that hit the border guard vehicle with great force. As Col. Arkadiusz Tywoniuk of the border guards conveyed, “The speed and kinetic energy were significant”.
I don’t know if it was fired from some kind of air weapon. In any case, the object pierced the vehicle’s side window, flew out the other side, and pierced another window. I emphasize that two officers were seated in the vehicle, also risked endangering their life and health," he pointed out.
Breaking! The weapon has been found! /s
This is article 5 reason!
Nah, decent chance that the shooter was a civilian. Short of undeniable proof that the (Byelo)russian army fired these shots there’s basically no chance of Article 5 being invoked, and even then I personally don’t think it’ll be triggered by anything less than a proper invasion of a NATO member.
Nah, the political body in NATO would determine whether the Article 5 invocation is valid or not. Article 5 over civilian throwing rock at the border guard? Unlikely. Poland would likely drag the diplomat from Belarus into the room and demand bringing those offenders before the International Court of law like ICJ, ICC, ECHR, or just a tribunal.
If Belarus doesn’t comply, then it can face severe sanctions, diplomacy pressure, increased border guard presence at the border, and so forth.
The rule of thumb when reasoning about which options might be used in such situation, the most boring one is probably the one. War is basically the absolute last resort of just about any circumstances.
Not great, not terrible.
