DISINFO: Poland and the EU are to blame for the migration crisis on the Belarusian border
SUMMARY
Poland's statements accusing Belarus of border incidents are false. The Polish attempts to shift responsibility for the EU migration crisis to Belarus are misleading and do not contribute to solving the problem. The EU's own policies, including military interventions, political pressure and attempts to change governments, have destabilised entire regions, causing millions of people to leave their homes. The EU refuses to work constructively with the countries of origin of the migrants, ignoring the real causes of migration. At the same time, Brussels has frozen the dialogue with Belarus, including expert contacts, effectively halting joint work on border and migration issues. Accusations against Belarus will not help solve the crisis that it is taking place in Europe.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about migration issues on the EU-Belarus borders.
The situation on the border was manufactured by Belarus as a response to EU sanctions imposed on Minsk for its oppressive measures against the political opposition. There is plenty of evidence that the Belarusian authorities have instigated the ongoing irregular migration flows to the EU borders via Belarus. As the Guardian writes "the 115-mile (186km) fence was built after Belarus’s dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, began luring people from the Middle East and Africa to his country in 2021 and busing them to the Polish border".
The deployment of more Polish soldiers on the Belarusian border is connected with the ongoing migration crisis staged by Minsk and Moscow – on 6 June 2024, a Polish soldier was murdered at the border by an irregular migrant.
The president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said that situation on the EU-Belarusian border is not a bilateral issue of Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus but a hybrid attack against the whole EU.
See here for the statement from the Fourth meeting of the Consultative Group with democratic forces and civil society held in Brussels in December 2024 which states:
"The Consultative Group addressed the political situation in Belarus, including the growing repression and deteriorating human rights conditions, the regime’s complicity in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, and its instrumentalisation of migration at the EU’s external borders".
See our earlier articles on the Belarus migration situation here.