Polish military reports up to 3500 people at the border with Belarus
“The key to solving the humanitarian crisis lies in Moscow”
“You have to tighten the screws even harder on the Russians,” says Prof. Carlo Masala, political scientist at the Bundeswehr University in Munich. It is in Putin’s interest that the situation escalates, which is why “political and economic pressure must be put on Russia”.
According to the Polish authorities, thousands of migrants are moving on the border with Belarus. Poland’s military is particularly present at the Kuznica border post to prevent the migrants from breaking through. Meanwhile, the EU has decided on further sanctions against Belarus.
A.According to Polish information, more and more migrants are gathering on the Belarusian side of the Kuznica transition on the EU’s external border between Poland and Belarus. According to the police, around 3,500 people are now gathered there, wrote the spokesman for the coordinator of the secret services, Stanislaw Zaryn, on Twitter on Monday. He also posted a video with aerial photographs. They show a large crowd at the clearance facilities of the closed border crossing on the Belarusian side.
The Ministry of Defense said on Twitter that the nearby camp was practically empty. According to the information, there are also provocations by Belarusian uniformed men. “The sound of gunshots, presumably from blind ammunition, is one of the everyday events our soldiers and officials have to deal with.” Recently there had been repeated attempts by migrants to break through the border.
A spokeswoman for the Polish border guards said: “We expect that there will be an attempt to cross the border by force. At the moment we have ordered all the forces we have available there. ”The Belarusian border guards also reported at noon that a“ large column ”was moving towards the Polish border. Contrary to the Polish representation, the Belarusian authorities emphasized that the migrants organized themselves independently.
For the schools in Kuznica and in Nowy Dwor, 16 kilometers further north, the Polish school authorities ordered distance learning for the coming days due to the current situation.
The information cannot be independently verified as Poland has declared a state of emergency in the border region. Journalists and helpers are not allowed in. This also applies to the border area on the Belarusian side. On Poland’s border with Belarus, thousands of migrants on the Belarusian side have been waiting for several days at temperatures around freezing point in makeshift camps in the forest. The Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko is accused of bringing refugees from crisis regions to the EU’s external border in an organized manner.
Thousands of people, especially from the Middle East, are currently stuck in freezing temperatures on the border with the EU member states Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. The EU accuses Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko of deliberately smuggling refugees into the EU in order to retaliate for earlier sanctions decisions.
EU foreign ministers extend sanctions against Belarus
The foreign ministers of the EU countries therefore decided on Monday a new sanction instrument against those involved in the smuggling of migrants to Belarus. The European Union will now be able to target people and institutions who help the Belarusian regime to instrumentalize people for political purposes, the Council of Member States announced on Monday.
The leadership of the ex-Soviet Republic of Belarus is accused of deliberately bringing migrants into the country in order to then bring them to the border with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia for onward travel to the EU. It is suspected that the ruler Alexander Lukashenko wants to avenge himself for the sanctions that the EU has imposed because of the repression of civil society and the democratic opposition.
The new sanction instrument is to be used against the state-owned Belarusian airline Belavia, among others. In the future, this should no longer be allowed to use machines from European companies that lease aircraft. The aim is that Belavia will then no longer be able to fly as many people from poor or conflict-ridden countries to Belarus to be smuggled on to the EU.
The number of migrants and refugees entering Germany via Belarus has recently decreased. According to preliminary figures from the security authorities on Monday, a total of around 225 unauthorized entries were registered on this route from Friday to Sunday. During the same period in the previous week, almost 400 foreigners were found who had previously been in Belarus. According to the German authorities, measures taken by the Polish border guards are one reason for the decline.