Belarus has no plans to prevent migrants from crisis-hit regions from passing through the country en route to European Union countries, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said in an interview with Russian television on Monday.
“You place a noose around my neck in the form of sanctions and then demand that I protect the EU from the flow of these migrants? That won’t happen,” Lukashenko said.
EU authorities, and Poland in particular, have accused Russian President Vladimir Putin and Lukashenko, his ally, of deliberately funnelling irregular migrants to the EU since 2021, providing them with visas and transport.
The main route runs via Belarus to the Polish border.
“The aim is to show all of Europe that the EU’s external border is not being controlled to cause a political effect: boosting the extreme right that promises to topple Europe from within,” Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said in June.
Poland has fortified much of its border with a 5.5-metre-high fence and electronic surveillance systems. Nevertheless, attempts are made to breach the border daily. Polish border guards have recorded 201 such attempts over the past three days.
The German federal police, responsible for the country’s borders, recorded 3,117 irregular entries via the Belarus route in the first half of the year. Last year, 11,932 entered via this route.
