Belarus has no plans to prevent migrants from crisis areas from passing through the country on their way to European Union countries, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said in an interview with Russian television on Monday.
“You put 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 will not happen,” Lukashenko said.
EU authorities, and Poland in particular, accuse Russian President Vladimir Putin and his ally Lukashenko of deliberately funneling irregular migrants into the EU and providing them with visas and transport since 2021.
The main route runs through Belarus to the Polish border.
“The aim is to show all of Europe that the EU’s external borders are not guarded to produce a political effect: to strengthen the far-right that wants to bring down Europe from within,” Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said in June.
Poland has fortified much of its border with a 5.5-meter-high fence and electronic surveillance systems. However, attempts to breach the border continue daily. Polish border guards have recorded 201 such attempts in 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.
