Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday (11) asked the European Union (EU) to resume dialogue with the Belarusian government, accused of fueling a migration crisis on its border with Poland, and threatened to suspend gas supplies to Europe if it is subjected to new sanctions.
In the case of punitive measures, Minsk will “respond”, said Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, mentioning the possibility of interrupting gas supplies from the Yamal-Europe pipeline, which transports mainly Russian gas to Germany and Poland.
“What would happen if we cut the natural gas that goes there?” asked Lukashenko, who made the threat at a time when European countries are suffering from the increase in gas prices due to reduced supply.
More than 2,000 migrants, mainly Kurds, are stranded in the open for days on the Belarus-Polish border in deplorable humanitarian conditions, while temperatures in this part of Europe drop to zero degrees.
This crisis between Belarus, Russia’s ally, and Poland, a member of the European Union, was discussed at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.
The body’s Western countries condemned in a joint resolution “the orchestrated instrumentalization of human beings” by Belarus with the aim of “distracting attention from its own growing human rights violations.”
Russian ambassador to the UN, Dmitri Polianski, criticized the EU for not serving these migrants. “They are not allowed to cross the border, they are chased, beaten. It’s a shame,” he said.
The EU accuses Belarus of organizing these migrant movements and granting them visas and even chartering planes to destabilize Europe and thus exact revenge on Western sanctions imposed on Lukashenko’s government after his criticized re-election in 2020, which was followed by demonstrations repressed massively.
Putin called on the European Union on Thursday to “re-establish contacts” with Belarus “to resolve the migration crisis as soon as possible.”
However, Germany considered that “it was time to analyze the consequences” of this crisis and tighten sanctions against the Belarusian government. According to Brussels, new measures will be announced next week.
From Berlin, Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tijanovskaya said the threat to cut Lukashenko’s gas was not “serious”. “It would hurt him and Belarus more than the European Union,” he told AFP.
– Humanitarian help –
With a tough immigration policy, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who accused Putin of “orchestrating” the crisis, guaranteed that his country was the victim of a “war of an unknown kind”, in which civilians are used as “munitions”.
Polish authorities also claim that Belarusian security forces fire into the air to force migrants forward.
Belarusian authorities claim that it is Polish border guards who violate international law by violently forcing migrants to return.
Meanwhile, many migrants, including women and children, find themselves trapped in these forests.
According to the spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), this Thursday they were able to deliver “emergency humanitarian aid”, such as blankets, winter clothes and diapers for the children.
Lithuania, which also sees migrants starting to reach its Belarus border, has called for the creation of a “humanitarian corridor” to evacuate migrants to the Belarusian city of Grodno, with an airport, and take them “home”.
Ukraine, which also shares a border with Belarus, announced on Thursday that it would send thousands of guards to the border.
According to Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, 10 migrants have died in the area since the crisis began.
– On alert –
Poland sent 15,000 soldiers to the border, put up a wire fence and approved the construction of a wall.
On Thursday, the country’s authorities reported 468 attempts to cross the border in the past few hours, including by a group of 150 people.
This crisis has been brewing for weeks. Since August, Poland has recorded 32,000 attempts to illegally enter its territory, 17,000 of them in October.
In Sokolka, a Polish town located about 15 kilometers from the border, authorities are on alert and stop vehicles to make sure they are not transporting migrants, confirmed AFP.
Many inhabitants support their government’s firm stance. “I’m afraid they might cross and the consequences that could bring,” said 67-year-old retired Henryk Lenkiewicz.
Others, like activist Anna Chmielewska, try to help migrants who have managed to cross the border. “They are getting more and more tired and they have less and less hope of success,” he lamented.
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