Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko’s attempt to drive thousands of migrants into neighboring nations has drawn a rebuke from NATO as the border crisis raises the risk of a new European conflict.
“The North Atlantic Council strongly condemns the continued instrumentalization of irregular migration artificially created by Belarus as part of hybrid actions targeted against Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia for political purposes,” the trans-Atlantic alliance said Friday in a joint statement. “These callous actions endanger the lives of vulnerable people.”
Lukashenko’s regime has been arranging for thousands of people from Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries to fly to Belarus and then make their way by land to neighboring states, according to European officials, in an apparent bid to punish Western nations for supporting the Belarusian opposition. Those operations have led to a standoff between Belarusian and Polish border forces as both sides accuse the other of trying to provoke bloodshed between a NATO member and a Russian client state.
“We will remain vigilant against the risk of further escalation and provocation by Belarus at its borders with Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia and will continue to monitor the implications for the security of the Alliance,” the NATO statement read.
U.S. and European officials are expected to impose new sanctions on Lukashenko as punishment.
“We are also very concerned about the efforts by Belarus to use migration as a political weapon,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday. “I’m not going to preview or get ahead of any possible sanctions, but we are looking at various tools that we have. And, of course, this is broader than the effort to use migration as a political weapon. This goes to the conduct of the Lukashenko regime in Belarus in denying the citizens of Belarus the democracy to which they’re entitled.”
BLINKEN WARNS PUTIN NOT TO ATTACK UKRAINE AS RUSSIA SENDS BOMBERS AMID BELARUS BORDER CRISIS
Lukashenko, contemplating the prospect of additional sanctions earlier this week, vowed to retaliate by closing a gas pipeline between Belarus and Poland while the regime accused the NATO member of trying to start a war.
“It seems that our Western neighbors, in particular Poland, are ready to unleash a conflict in which they want to involve Europe as part of solving their domestic political problems, as well as problems within the European Union,” Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin said Friday, per state media.
The threat of conflict is driven by the fact that “large groups of people are gathered and transported to the border area, where they are then forced to cross the border illegally,” according to a joint statement from the defense ministers of the Baltic states: Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia.
“The situation is unpredictable and very dangerous,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis added Thursday during a trip to Paris. “To avoid further escalation, the EU must take concerted and determined action against the Belarusian regime, including the imposition of additional sanctions also on airports. This is not just an attack on Lithuania, Poland, or Latvia. This is an attack on the EU and the entire community of democracies.”
The tensions have spurred a flurry of meetings across the trans-Atlantic alliance, with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg scheduled to huddle with the defense ministers of the European Union member-states next week.
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“NATO Allies stand in solidarity with Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and other Allied nations affected, and support measures, guided by fundamental values and applicable international law, taken by Allies individually and collectively, in response to a situation that requires close coordination with key international partners,” NATO said Friday.
