Elements of a new Iron Curtain continue to appear along Belarus’s border with the European Union. And as they do, officials in the Baltic states and Poland are increasingly concerned that there could be more to the escalating migrant crisis on the EU’s eastern frontier than meets the eye.
The Polish parliament is considering legislation to spend more than USD 400 million to build a wall on its border with Belarus. Poland has also nearly doubled its troop presence on its eastern border to almost 6,000 soldiers. These moves come weeks after Polish officials claimed that Belarusian forces had fired shots across the border on October 7.
Tensions between Belarus and the European Union have been mounting for months since Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s autocratic regime retaliated against EU sanctions by manufacturing a migrant crisis by flying thousands of migrants to Minsk from Middle Eastern hot spots and then spiriting them across the border into Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia. More than 16,000 have been prevented from illegally crossing the Polish border, more than 4,000 in Lithuania, and nearly 1,800 in Latvia.
The migrant crisis on Europe’s eastern border is not a sideshow. It is an escalating security nightmare that is unfolding as Belarus becomes increasingly militarized and as Russia rapidly expands its military footprint in its smaller but strategically vital neighbor. And it is becoming increasingly apparent that there could be much more sinister agendas at play in this manufactured crisis than a desire on the part of the Belarusian dictator to get revenge on Europe for imposing sanctions on his regime.
Back in September, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told reporters in Warsaw that Lukashenka was not acting alone, but was instead being assisted by Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin. “We’re dealing with a mass organized, well-directed action from Minsk and Moscow,” he said.