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Despite leaving the immediate vicinity of the border to take shelter from the biting cold in the warehouse, many migrants held out hope they might still get to Europe and, failing that, settle in Belarus rather than being forced to return home, which for many is Iraq.

Yuri Karayev, an aide to Mr. Lukashenko representing the surrounding border region of Grodno, declined to answer questions about what lies in store for the migrants now that they have given up their hold on the patch of forested border land they had occupied for weeks — but not their desire to get to Europe.

Poland, backed by fellow members of the European Union, shows no sign of relenting on its hard-line stand against migrants trying to enter the country. Poland’s prime minister told a German newspaper that “by defending our border, we defend the whole of Europe.”

Under the gray gloom of the November sky, phalanxes of Polish soldiers remained in formation Thursday around the Bruzgi border crossing, still flanked by water cannons — used on Tuesday to repel a push by migrants toward Poland from Belarus. The government in Warsaw had repeatedly portrayed the migrants as an invading horde, but they had now suddenly vanished, at least from view.

Polish officials said Thursday that they had recorded 501 attempts to cross the border from Belarus in the previous 24 hours and, repeating a claim made daily by Warsaw, accused Belarusian security officials of leading groups of migrants to try to breach the frontier. Migrants give contradictory accounts of whether their forays into Poland, nearly all unsuccessful, had been aided by Belarus.