Polish Prime Minister Mateus Morawiecki accused Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday (November 9) of planning a wave of immigrants trying to illegally enter Poland from Belarus, saying that the “attack” was possible. Destabilize the European Union.
At the time of the allegations, thousands of desperate migrants were trapped in the cold weather on the Belarus-Poland border, and the presence of the armed forces of both sides raised concerns about confrontation.
For months, Western critics have stated that the strongman leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, is luring migrants from the Middle East to his country and then sending them across the border in retaliation for EU sanctions.
Moravitsky visited the guards, army and police at the border on Tuesday, and then set his sights on Russia, the main international supporter of Belarus.
Morawiecki told the Polish parliament: “The attack by Lukashenko is planned in Moscow, and the planner is President Putin.”
He said that immigrants are used as “human shields to destabilize the situation in Poland and the European Union.”
Germany accused Lukashenko of sending migrants to the Polish border “unscrupulously” to exploit them, and on Wednesday called on the European Union to impose new sanctions on Belarus.
“Lukashenko must realize that his calculations are not working,” said Heiko Maas, the German Foreign Minister. “The EU cannot be blackmailed.”
EU diplomats told AFP that the EU is working to expand existing sanctions. The European Union said it is also pushing more than a dozen countries, mainly those in the Middle East and Africa, to prevent their nationals from going to Belarus.
‘I am not a lunatic’
The EU accuses Lukashenko of trying to destabilize the EU by encouraging immigration to its borders, especially Poland and Lithuania, in retaliation for the sanctions imposed by Belarus on the regime’s dismal human rights record.
A video appeared on the Internet, reportedly taken from November 6th to 7th. Hundreds of people were waiting in Damascus for a flight coordinated by Belarus, Russia and Assad. Their destination is Minsk, and from there to the Polish border. Most of them are Iraqi Kurds. pic.twitter.com/04ky87HjWC
-Ruslan Trad (@ruslantrad) November 8, 2021
European Commission spokesman Peter Stano told reporters on Tuesday: “This is part of the inhumane and truly gang-style practices of the Lukashenko regime.”
Belarus denies these claims and accuses Poland of violating human rights by denying immigration entry.
“We are not seeking to fight,” Lukashenko told the state news agency Berta.
He added: “I am not a lunatic, I know very well what it will lead to.”
“But we won’t kneel down.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the West of military “adventures” in the Middle East to prompt migrants to flee the region.
“Why when it comes to refugees from Turkey to the EU, does the EU provide funds to keep them on Turkish territory?” he told reporters.
“Why can’t you help Belarusians in the same way?”
Border crisis
On Monday, hundreds of migrants tried to cross the border, but were blocked behind barbed wire by rows of Polish police, soldiers and border guards. The crisis reached its climax.
Both Poland and Belarus said on Tuesday that 3,000 to 4,000 migrants are now in a temporary camp at the border, near the Polish village of Kuznica.
Journalists have been banned from entering the area, but videos released by Belarusian and Polish authorities show that as the temperature hovers near freezing points, migrants gather on barbed wire and huddle together in fires and tents.
The Belarusian Border Service stated that most of the immigrants in the concentration camps are Kurds, and their physical and mental conditions are “extremely poor” and lack water, food and toiletries.
“The large number of pregnant women and babies among the refugees has made the situation worse. They have to spend the night on the ground under negative temperatures,” it said.
In recent months, thousands of migrants have crossed the border from Belarus or attempted to cross the border into the eastern EU member states Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
Lithuanian lawmakers voted on Tuesday to implement a state of emergency at the Belarusian border, effective from midnight.
Some immigrants who entered Poland told AFP last month that they were trapped in the woods for a week. Belarus refused to allow them to return to Minsk and fly home, while Poland refused to allow them to cross the border and apply for asylum.
Warsaw has been severely criticized for its hard-line approach to the crisis, as guards often push migrants and refugees back to the border.
In 2015, the Arctic migration route was through Russia’s Kola Peninsula to 🇳🇴 #Storskog And 🇫🇮#Sala A pilot test of what we see at the border between Belarus and 🇵🇱🇱🇹? Stop using innocent people on the battlefield to achieve political goals. pic.twitter.com/J5C9wT5s5c
-Thomas Nielsen (@NilsenThomas) November 9, 2021
