Russia and Belarus today made a common front in the migration crisis with the European Union (EU), accusing Brussels of creating with its own hands the problem on the border with Poland, while the Kremlin denied being behind the arrival of thousands irregular immigrants from the Middle East.
“Russia has never hidden that in the most difficult moments it is ready to offer, and is already doing so, the necessary aid to Belarus,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told his daily telephone press conference.
The Russian and Belarusian foreign ministers staged this alliance in Moscow today with a meeting in which they expressed their confidence that “the great European powers” will not be dragged into a “highly dangerous” spiral of confrontation.
According to the Daily Mail, Russian leader Vladimir Putin sent nuclear bombers into the skies of Belarus as migrants on the Polish border try to flee to Britain and escape alleged beatings by Alexander Lukashenko’s soldiers.
Two Tu-22M3 supersonic bombers carried out “combat alert tasks for air defense” in support of the Belarusian leader, the Russian defense ministry said in response to rising tensions at the border. The British outlet claims there are images showing Belarusian soldiers firing to intimidate terrified women and children who are desperately trying to escape and head for Britain in search of safety, said one of the estimated 2,000 migrants.
Western governments accuse Belarusian strongman Lukashenko of luring migrants, mostly from the Middle East, into his country and sending them across to Poland to spark a renewed European migration crisis in retaliation for sanctions imposed against him for his brutal repression of protesters. The former Belarusian ambassador to France and Poland claims that the migrants are Afghan and Iraqi war veterans trained by Russian intelligence.
Russian support without mediation
The head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, who this week blamed the West for the crisis for trying to impose democracy in the Middle East, said today that “there is no other way out than to dialogue and determine, based on real events, what actually happened. “.
“Belarus has proposed on more than one occasion … to hold consultations, reach an agreement, settle these issues on the basis of international law,” he said.
Of course, he denied that a possible Russian mediation is on the table.
Russian diplomacy also put on the bandage before the wound, describing as “illegitimate” the new sanctions that the EU is discussing against the regime of Alexandr Lukashenko, considered the last dictator of Europe.
For his part, the head of Belarusian diplomacy, Vladimir Makéi, claimed to have received “certain signals” of dialogue from Brussels, but immediately refused to participate in a possible conference called by Austria on the future of Belarus, which he considered “nonsense. “.
In addition, he accused Poland of concentrating “15,000 soldiers” on the Belarusian border to prevent the entry of “women and children” into Europe.
Makéi also assured the official RIA Nóvosti agency that Minsk has detained about 700 people for trying to cross the border and dismantled eleven illegal immigration routes.
Putin responds to Merkel
If Russia is the alleged instigator of the crisis, Germany is the supposed destination of the immigrants.
For this reason, German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to influence Lukashenko, while criticizing the “instrumentalization” of immigrants against the EU.
In response, Putin urged Brussels to establish “direct contacts” with Minsk to solve the migration crisis at the gates of the Union and not ask him for help.
And it is that the Kremlin was in charge of crossing as “irresponsible” and “inadmissible” the words of the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, on which Russia is “responsible” for the current situation.
In addition, Peskov warned that a “humanitarian catastrophe” is about to explode on the Polish-Belarusian border and considered that the closure of the border “would only complicate the situation.”
Belarus, transit to paradise
The Belarusian lawyer Aliona Chejovich, an immigration expert, does not doubt that it was the Belarusian regime that organized the flow of irregular in recent months to the 27.
“The authorities were the ones who launched an advertising campaign several months ago in which Belarus was listed as the transit country to the EU,” he told Efe from Minsk.
In this campaign, according to Chejovich, the tourist agencies and tour operators that depend on the presidential administration would participate and benefit.
The activist spoke with several immigrants who in the last two weeks tried unsuccessfully to cross the border with the EU.
“They are mostly Kurds from Iraq, but there are also Syrians and Iranians. They told us that they paid, granted them a tourist visa, booked a hotel room or an apartment in Minsk, and tried to cross into Europe through the forest,” relates.
Some reached the Belarusian capital through Russia. Be that as it may, “the Poles arrested them and forcibly returned them.”
“There were cases where the Polish policemen even paid a bribe to the Belarusian border guards to allow them to expel them,” he explained.
She fears for the lives of immigrants, whom she considers “hostages of the political game”, since in Belarus “they are used exclusively as an instrument of pressure” on the EU.
“Now, all those interested know that you can cross Belarus,” he said. (I)
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
