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Vladimir Putin: "That would be a violation of our transit agreement"
Photo: Mikhail Metzel / imago images / SNA
Russia warns Belarus, which it supports, against stopping gas pipelines to Europe in the dispute with the EU.
In an interview with state television, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that such a move would put a strain on relations between the two states.
The EU accuses Belarus of targeting people from crisis regions in the Middle East and Africa and leading them to the Polish border.
SPIEGEL research shows that Lukashenko uses a system for this purpose that now extends to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Dubai.
Poland has closed the border - thousands are stuck
Polish government politicians and EU officials speak of a “hybrid attack”.
Polish soldiers and police have cordoned off the border.
Thousands of people have been waiting at the border crossing between Poland and Belarus and other parts of the border since Monday.
They come mainly from Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.
Belarusian border guards prevented some from returning to Minsk.
Occasionally they sent groups elsewhere, for example to the border with Lithuania.
The Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko had recently brought a stop to gas supplies to the Europeans in the conflict.
The Yamal pipeline, through which Russian gas flows via Belarus to Poland and Germany, would be affected.
The Belarusian part of the pipeline belongs to the Russian state monopoly Gazprom.
Putin warns Lukashenko
Of course, Lukashenko could stop the gas supplies to Europe, Putin said now.
Yet: »That wouldn't mean anything good.
I'll talk to him about it, maybe it was said in a fit of anger, ”Putin said of the threat.
"That would be a violation of our transit agreement." He hopes it doesn't come to that.
Such a step would not be helpful for Russia's relations with Belarus as a transit country.
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Germany! «By Christina Hebel, Muriel Kalisch, Steffen Lüdke and Maximilian Popp
The situation on the Polish-Belarusian border is becoming more and more precarious every day.
The area is one of the coldest regions in Poland, and temperatures are already dropping below freezing at night.
The Polish police said they found the body of a young Syrian in the forest on Friday.
According to the officials, the dead man was discovered the day before near the village of Wolka Terechowska.
The exact cause of death could not be determined, it said.
The exact death toll is unclear
At least ten migrants reportedly had previously died in the border area, many of them frozen to death.
The exact death toll is unclear.
The Polish government has imposed a state of emergency on the border.
Journalists and aid organizations are not allowed to enter the border area.
Dozens of migrants reported to SPIEGEL and other media that they were regularly pushed back to Belarus by Polish border guards.
The Polish parliament recently allowed these pushbacks, which are illegal under EU law.
slü / heb / Reuters