Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, accused by the European Union of orchestrating a stand-off between migrants and Polish security forces on the country’s border, threatened to stop the flow of Russian gas to Europe as the EU moved towards imposing new punitive measures on his government.
Several thousand mostly Asian migrants remained huddled in makeshift camps in below-zero night-time temperatures and staged a symbolic protest, with children holding up signs reading “Sorry”. A few metres away, behind barbed wire border fortifications, stood cordons of Polish security forces. Officials said the migrants had staged new attempts to push their way across and warned such confrontations could descend into violence.
The embattled Lukashenko withstood weeks of mass demonstrations last year by protesters alleging he rigged his re-election to a sixth term. He has since crushed dissent – and prompted increasingly tough EU sanctions — by engineering a comprehensive crackdown, with top activists fleeing the country, others sentenced to long jail terms and more than 30,000 mainly young demonstrators detained for short periods.
The president is accused of masterminding a scheme in which migrants were flown to Minsk on additional flights to the city, facilitating visas and arranging their transfer, accompanied by uniformed men, to the border area. Pictures posted by the BBC showed groups of young people with backpacks congregating in Minsk city centre,
Lukashenko says Belarus will respond to new sanctions
Chairing a meeting with government ministers, Lukashenko said the EU had “started to intimidate us rather too much” with the suggestion of new sanctions, the fifth round of such punitive measures. If new sanctions were ordered, he said, “we have to answer back”.
“We keep Europe warm and they keep threatening to close the border. What if we cut off the natural gas being sent there?” the BelTa news agency showed him telling ministers, referring to a pipeline carrying Russian Arctic gas to the EU. “I would therefore recommend that the leaders of Poland, the Lithuanians and other reckless people think before they speak. But that is their business.”
There was no indication whether Lukashenko could undertake such a move on gas transit pipelines. Russia, Lukashenko’s main ally, has denied any responsibility for the humanitarian calamity at the border and called on the the EU to talk directly with Belarus to resolve it.
The EU accused Lukashenko this week of resorting to “gangster-style” tactics in fomenting the migrant crisis at the Polish border. The president of its Executive Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said after talks in Washington with U.S. President Joe Biden that the bloc would impose new sanctions next week.
“We will widen our sanctions against Belarus, very rapidly at the beginning of next week there will be a widening of sanctions against Belarus,” von der Leyen said in front of the White House.
A spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council said Washington was preparing “follow-up sanctions”.
“We are deeply concerned by the Lukashenko regime’s inhumane actions and strongly condemn their callous exploitation and coercion of vulnerable people,” the spokesman said.
The EU’s economy commissioner Paolo Gentiloni said on Thursday that the bloc “should not be intimidated” by Lukashenko’s threats.
The Polish Defense Ministry said a group of several hundred migrants had tried to force its way across the border, one of hundreds of attempts since the camps were set up this week. Soldiers fired warning shots into the air to repel the migrants. A Ministry video showed some of the estimated 12,000 Polish soldiers in the area patrolling their side of the forested border area with guard dogs.
Migrants have told the few journalists able to circumvent emergency measures in effect in the area that they are fast running out of food and water.
Ministers warn of possible serious incidents
The number of migrants on the Polish border has been estimated at between 2,000 and 4,000. Arvidas Anushauskas, Lithuania’s Defence Minister, said there could be more than 1,000 migrants along his country’s border with Belarus.
“This increases the possibility of provocations and serious incidents that could also spill over into military domain,” a joint statement by the Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian defense ministers said, noting the “deliberate escalation of the ongoing hybrid attack by the Belarusian regime, which is posing serious threats to European security”.
Migrants have told the few journalists able to circumvent emergency measures in effect in the area that they are fast running out of food and water.
Earlier this week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that “a humanitarian catastrophe is looming against the background of Europeans’ reluctance to demonstrate commitment to their European values”. He also described as “absolutely irresponsible and unacceptable” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s comment that the crisis “has its mastermind in Moscow”.
Russian media said two Tu-22M3 bombers would be deployed to Belarus to help test the two countries’ joint air defence system.
Lukashenko, who has led Belarus since 1994, told the Russian defence magazine Natsionalnaya Oborona this week that the migrants had paid their way to the border with Belarus merely acting as a welcoming host. He said he feared an escalation if violence erupted.
“In today’s world, you will agree that taking up arms is akin to death, to suicide, especially in the centre of Europe…,” he said. “Confronting migrants with “leopards” (tanks) – forgive me but as you and I are military men we understand what it means today to wage a war with these unfortunate people on the Polish border and bring in columns of tanks. It is clear that this is some kind of training exercise or blackmail.”
Accounts from the border say some migrants have paid large sums of money – up to 15,000 euros and more – to make it across only to be repulsed and sent back by Polish border guards.
Lukashenko had previously worked with the EU to keep migrants from crossing the border. But that abruptly ended after EU leaders slapped new sanctions, particularly on key exports, in response to Lukashenko ordering the grounding in May of a scheduled flight crossing through Belarusian airspace and the arrest of a dissident journalist on board.