The dangerous strategy of the Belarusian dictatorship to take revenge on Europe

Belarusian authorities have opened border with European Union to human trafficking and possible drug trafficking, senior Lithuanian official says, after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko promised to sanction the 27-nation bloc.

Revenge highlights how ready Lukashenko is to wage his battles with the West while continuing to crush the opposition in his country, where key opposition figures face up to 15 years in prison in huis trials closed for treason or incitement to disorder. It also suggests that Lukashenko’s main supporters in Moscow have no interest in arresting him.

Belarus has stopped monitoring its border, using asylum seekers as a pressure tool, Lithuanian Deputy Interior Minister Arnoldas Abramavičius said in an interview after Lukashenko threatened to flood Europe with immigrants. Lithuania has had to set up tent camps for migrants, mostly from Iraq, but a crisis is feared during the winter months, when thousands more are expected.

European Union, United States, Great Britain and Canada imposed sanctions on Belarus for the forced landing of a Ryanair flight in order to arrest the journalist Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega in May. The measures build on previous sanctions for Lukashenko’s brutal crackdown on opposition figures and activists after last summer’s elections, which Western officials and rights groups called rigged.

Lukashenko warned at the end of June that Belarus would no longer prevent asylum seekers, drugs and even nuclear materials from entering the European Union.

“They demand that we protect them from smuggling and drug trafficking. Even on the other side of the Atlantic, we hear calls for help to prevent nuclear material from reaching Europe, ”Lukashenko said at a wreath-laying ceremony in Brest on June 22, according to the state-owned BelTA news agency.

“Are they waging a hybrid war against us and demanding that we help them like before?” “he added. “Are they systematically and collectively strangling us, bankrupting us, trying to kill our economy, and expect us to spend hundreds of millions of US dollars, as before, to protect your geopolitical interests?” “

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For the first time, sanctions imposed by the EU on June 24 hit Belarus’ main export sectors – oil, tobacco and certain types of potash, a material used in fertilizers – and restricted its access to finance and European insurance.

“We want to financially drain the Lukashenko regime,” said German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. The sale of a wide range of technologies that can be used for surveillance has also been prohibited.

Rolls-Royce informed the Professional Union of Belarusians of Great Britain that it had stopped cooperating with BelAZ, a heavy transport manufacturing company and its subsidiaries, on June 22, due to the sanctions. British American Tobacco is also under pressure for its relations with Belarus. A statement from BAT said its Belarusian subsidiary BAT Belarus would be subject to due diligence to ensure compliance with the company’s code of conduct, while an external auditor would review working conditions at the factory. public tobacco GTF Neman, which supplies BAT.

In Britain, Belarusians staged protests at the company’s London headquarters, according to The Guardian.

Belarus’ main export product, potash from state-owned Belaruskali, was not included in the latest sanctions. and one of the main exports of Belarus. This softened the immediate blow to Belarus – Belarus is the world’s largest potash producer – but left open the possibility that the West would later exert greater pressure.

“Even if some of the measures have been relaxed, they may eventually have far-reaching consequences,” analyst Mateusz Kubiak wrote in an article for the Jamestown Foundation, adding that Belarusian oil exports were the hardest. affected by the sanctions, a sector which represents 8% of the GDP.

Previously, Europe had sanctioned dozens of officials, companies and key oligarchs close to Lukashenko and banned Belarusian state airline Belavia from accessing European airspace. The United States, Britain and Canada have announced similar sanctions.

Last week, the United States also banned the sale of airline tickets to and from Belarus. The European Broadcasting Union suspended the membership of the state-owned Beltelradio on Thursday.

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The numbers say it all. Lithuanian official Abramavičius said 74 asylum seekers left Belarus last year. This year there were 636, the majority in June. In May, 77 migrants – more than in 2020 – entered Lithuania from Belarus. In June, the figure climbed to 448.

Abramavičius predicted that thousands of asylum seekers could enter the European Union by the end of the year, in a Lukashenko’s effort to emulate Turkey’s use of asylum seekers to pressure the European Union amid a huge exodus of migrants from Syria and elsewhere in 2015.

“We catch groups every night. The number is increasing. The pressure on border guards and institutions responsible for asylum procedures is increasing, ”said Abramavičius. “It is very clear that Belarus is targeting Lithuania,” he added. Lithuania offers refuge to Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the woman recognized in the West as the legitimate winner of last year’s elections.

Abramavičius called it Lukashenko’s “hybrid weaponry”.

The migrants arrive without papers, but 75% say they come from Iraq. “We have never faced irregular migration from this route. Most of the time we had low numbers from ex-Soviet Central Asian countries like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Now it’s Iraq. “” Normally they don’t know what country they’re entering, “he added.” They just know it’s Europe. “

It remains unclear whether Belarusian authorities are facilitating the transport of asylum seekers to the border or simply signaling publicly to human smugglers that an easy new route to the European Union has been opened.

“They refuse any illegal entry and are not readmitted. We have no evidence that they are involved, ”said Abramavičius.

Four weekly flights arrive from Iraq to Minsk.

Abramavičius claimed that Belarus “invited” Iraqis to go sightseeing and issued tourist visas, sometimes at the airport. From there, organized transport by trucks and buses takes them to the border, less than 95 miles away, he said, based on information provided by asylum seekers to Lithuanian officials processing their claims. asylum.

Most then cross the woods in groups of 10 to 12 people.

“You can imagine that in a country as centralized as Belarus, it is impossible to land at Minsk airport, organize a few buses or a truck to get to the border, without attracting attention and recognition. police, border police and security. services. “Belarusian security, successor to the Soviet KGB, is no different.

“Their transfers are organized, that’s for sure. It may not be the authorities, ”he added. “Maybe they’re just smugglers.”

Lukashenko has warned Europe that he will no longer stop drug traffickers, but so far there are no signs of increasing drug trafficking, Abramavičius said, although he fears this threat may emerge in the coming months.

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As expected, Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus since 1994, swears not to give in to Western sanctions. It is strengthening ties with Europe and resolutely returning to Russia’s orbit, its main source of financial support.

The regime’s crackdown continues, with closed-door trials, arrests, searches, beatings of prisoners and forced “confessions” on video. More than 500 political prisoners are in prison, some for a tweet or to show the opposition’s red and white colors.

The main opposition figures, Sergei Tikhanovsky and Viktor Babariko, have recently been on trial. Tikhanovsky’s trial was closed to independent media, diplomats and the public, as supporters struggled to participate in Babariko’s trial. Tikhankovsky is married to Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who only stood for the presidential election because he was imprisoned.

On June 28, Belarusian authorities asked the EU representative in Minsk, Dirk Schuebel, to return to Brussels “for consultations” and announced that they were withdrawing their representative from Brussels. Belarus has also suspended a cooperation agreement with Europe, the Eastern Partnership.

The European Union in May pledged more than $ 3.5 billion in aid to Belarus on condition that it adopts a democratic path.

But on Wednesday Belarus hit back. He ordered the closure in Belarus of German cultural and educational organizations, the Goethe Institute and the German Academic Exchange Service.

“Lukashenko wants to isolate the country even more”Belarusian journalist and non-resident Atlantic Council member Hannah Liubakova tweeted. “You have to isolate him, not the people.”

The Kremlin is likely to put pressure on the Belarusian leader to speed up his country’s integration into a union with Russia that could undermine its economic independence.

Meanwhile, Belarus faces a brain drain as its brightest young experts in IT, medicine, law and media flee, heading to other countries in Europe and the United States.

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