(CN) — Military tanks, squadrons of police and miles of razor-wire fences are being deployed along the European Union's borders with Belarus to keep out an influx of immigrants and asylum seekers who are allegedly being unlawfully sent into the EU by Minsk in retaliation for sanctions.
Call it part of a “hybrid war” that is dangerously playing out between the EU and neighboring Belarus, a nation of about 9.4 million people that's become a top security problem for the EU since its authoritarian Soviet-style leader, Alexander Lukashenko, brutally cracked down on protests and opponents following an allegedly rigged election that kept him in power in August 2020.
On Thursday, Polish President Andrzej Duda escalated the tensions by declaring a state of emergency along Poland's border with Belarus. Lithuania and Latvia previously declared their own states of emergency.
Critics contend the situation is far from a crisis with slightly more than 4,000 people recorded as seeking to cross these EU borders illegally by the end of July, according to EU data. Making Poland's state of emergency seem even less compelling, 3,700 of those crossings took place in Lithuania, according to Frontex, the EU's border security agency. But Polish authorities say more than 3,000 people attempted to cross into Poland from Belarus in August.
Poland's state of emergency – the first since the end of communism in 1989 – will last for at least a month and overlap with military drills Belarus and Russia are planning for the middle of September along the Polish border. Poland says the military exercises pose another danger.
Since early July, European, Polish and Baltic officials have accused Belarus and Russia of transporting large numbers of immigrants and asylum seekers – many of from Iraq and Afghanistan – by airplanes to Minsk and then pushing them across the borders of Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. They point to security videos showing Belarusian guards allegedly helping people cross the border and social media posts inviting foreigners to fly to Minsk.
EU officials contend Lukashenko is using asylum seekers as a tool to retaliate against sanctions the EU imposed on the Belarusian regime as punishment for the crackdown on dissidents, including the forced landing of a Ryanair passenger jet passing through Belarusian air space and subsequent arrest of a dissident blogger aboard the airplane. Belarus and Russia deny the accusations.
“We have to stop these aggressive hybrid actions, which are carried out according to a script written in Minsk and by Mr. Lukashenko’s patrons,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Tuesday at a news conference in Warsaw.
By sending the military to the Belarus border, Poland is sending a clear message to Lukashenko too. Poland and the Baltic states are urging the EU to be more aggressive in challenging Lukashenko and Russia. They are home to many Belarusian exiles and media outlets critical of Lukashenko.
The Belarusian minister of foreign affairs, Vladimir Makei, called Poland's state of emergency an overreaction and accused the EU of balking at negotiations to resolve the border dispute.
“Nothing was introduced when floods happened in the past or when the pandemic engulfed all of Poland,” Makei said, as reported by BelTA, a Belarusian state-run news agency. “But as soon as 32 refugees appeared near the border, Poland introduced a state of emergency.”
He was referring to a group of 32 people – mostly Afghans – who are making headlines after they became stranded on the border between armed Belarusian and Polish police and soldiers. Activists and medics said they were stopped from helping people in need of food, water and medical attention, according to news reports.
The problems along the Belarusian border began in June when more than 400 people crossed without permission into Lithuania, according to Frontex, the EU's border security agency. In July, Frontex said more than 3,000 people crossed illegally into Lithuania from Belarus. Frontex has sent its agents to the Belarus border too.
Follow @cainburdeau
