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Belarus: That's behind the border crisis - Lukashenko risks escalating with Poland

2021-11-19T15:22:26.630Z


Increasing Belarusian provocations leave Warsaw with few options. The situation is possibly the greatest challenge Poland faces since the fall of communism.


Increasing Belarusian provocations leave Warsaw with few options.

The situation is possibly the greatest challenge Poland faces since the fall of communism.

  • A humanitarian catastrophe is taking place in the Belarusian-Polish border region.

  • The dictator Lukashenko is risking an escalation of violence with Poland.

  • The dilemma: there is no easy way out of a crisis brought about by a determined actor who wants to create unrest.

  • This article is available in German for the first time - it was first published by

    Foreign Policy

    magazine on November 9, 2021

    .

A dangerous situation is brewing on the Polish-Belarusian border.

Since the dictator Alexander Lukashenko tried brutally to stay in power last August, Minsk has been increasingly isolated - and has sharply attacked its neighbors, such as Poland, who support the Belarusian opposition.

The newest so-called weapon are migrants. Belarus lures people from Iraq and other countries to fly to Minsk as it provides an alleged route into the European Union bloc. This has led to improvised migrant camps in the forests on the borders with Lithuania and Poland, where the authorities are trying to prevent migrants from entering the country through the use of border guards and improvised barbed wire fences. The situation is not only a political, but also a humanitarian crisis *: with the onset of winter come freezing temperatures, not to mention the civilian population caught between armed forces.

The Polish media and government have highlighted the role of migrants and the action was presented by Warsaw as an example of a "hybrid attack".

This has roused public opinion, which largely blames the Belarusian state for the crisis.

The public is in favor of defending, maybe even strengthening, the border.

Belarus: That's behind the border crisis - Lukashenko risks escalating with Poland

However, there are clear indications that this is not just a cynical “arming” of desperate people, but an impending border conflict of a more traditional kind. “Hybrid war” is a vague and often overloaded term. It is true that “irregular” activities below the threshold of an armed conflict are in principle often legal under international rules, even if they are hostile or hostile. However, the Belarusian-Polish conflict is taking a very different shape.

The situation has shifted to borderline tensions that go beyond attempting to deploy or stop the migrants.

There are many signs of this, most notably the presence of armed, uniformed troops in close proximity to one another on both sides of the border.

At the beginning of November there were at least 12,000 soldiers on the Polish side (according to the latest reports 20,000).

Belarus is less transparent in this regard, but it cannot be denied that armed Belarusian forces are also present near the border.

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The handout made available by the Belarusian state agency BelTA via AP shows a man holding a child in his arms and kissing it near the closed Kuznica border crossing to Poland.

© Maxim Guchek / dpa

This runs the risk of things getting out of hand, be it on purpose or not.

Small incidents can escalate quickly, and clashes such as fake gunshots have already been reported.

These and other types of unprofessional behavior, where untrained or undisciplined security guards push boundaries, are a significant escalation factor.

There are many examples from the past, such as the fatal incidents between Indian and Chinese soldiers in June 2020 in the Himalayan Mountains.

Escalation factors at the Poland-Belarus border: Worrying Incidents - Violation of Polish sovereignty

There are already reports of shots with blank cartridges on the Belarusian side and pictures of masked people, who are probably not migrants, cracking down on the barbed wire fence on the Polish side. Armed men have marched into Polish territory, including scenes in which they reloaded weapons and aimed targets without actually shooting. It is unclear who is behind these incidents and whether the men are receiving direct orders from the Belarusian state. This is a clear violation of Polish sovereignty and the Polish Foreign Ministry has summoned the Belarusian chargé d'affaires.

The Belarusian side responded with a summons from the Polish Chargé d'Affaires. In a statement, NATO expressed concern about the territorial violations. The European Commission condemned Belarus’s actions and called for new sanctions against the Belarusian authorities, some of which are already in place.

In the meantime, there have been a number of statements from Poland and Belarus, each sticking to their own representations.

Statements on websites of the Belarusian government blame Poland (and Europe) for the alleged humanitarian attacks.

This information war runs parallel to the border conflict, as do the clashes on social media.

Online hostilities like this are an inevitable part of modern day conflicts, such as the bitter Armenian-Azerbaijani slugfest on Twitter during the recent Nagorno-Karabakh war.

The real danger, however, remains the constantly deteriorating borderline situation, in which provocative actions can easily degenerate into real violence.

Putin: Russia expresses concern - there is fear in Poland that the Kremlin will influence it

In an official communication, Russia * expressed its concern without expressly supporting or condemning either side. However, since Minsk deliberately created the situation, it was practically an offer to support Belarus, a longtime supporter of Russia who has essentially remained Lukashenko's only source of foreign support. In Poland, fear of Russian interference in conflict is omnipresent, especially given the fate of neighboring Ukraine.

A de-escalation is urgently needed, and with it the withdrawal of the uniformed from the borders and a stabilization of the situation. But it is difficult to imagine that this could be done through conventional diplomatic channels, especially in view of the increasingly chaotic and deplorable Belarusian government, which only a few months ago forced a plane to land and hijacked an opposition journalist. Minsk is an unreliable partner for easy de-escalation.

This has led many in Poland to propose building a physical border to stop migrants and theoretically de-escalate the situation.

The Polish parliament has already passed a corresponding law.

European Union officials have proposed high-tech solutions using drones and sensors, but that is magical thinking.

There is no technology, especially on the heavily forested border, to prevent determined or hostile intrusion, except by the old, brutal methods of concrete, steel, wire and guards.

Belarus: NATO and the EU should not be held hostage by Lukashenko

Although fences or walls are primarily controversial from the point of view of human rights, there are many examples of walls that were built for reasons of border stability.

More than 60 structures have been erected since 1800, including the notorious Berlin Wall and the Maginot Line, but also lesser-known ones such as the Turkish-Syrian border wall, the wall between India and Myanmar or the wall between Spain and Morocco.

There is no magical and easy way out of a crisis brought about by a determined actor who wants to create unrest. 

Lukasz Olejink

Whether there are other realistic options remains to be seen. In principle, and in an ideal world, the United Nations Security Council could take a position. In our world, however, such a motion would be vetoed by Russia. However, the EU ambassadors to the United Nations will discuss the matter and possible steps, also with the involvement of the UN Security Council.

There is no magical and easy way out of a crisis brought about by a determined actor who wants to create unrest.

Neither should NATO and the EU become hostages to a rogue Belarusian state.

Therefore there is no alternative but a coordinated response that protects Polish sovereignty and the border of the European Union, deterring further attacks on the border and seeking a humanitarian solution for the migrants trapped by the Minsk measures.

The situation remains possibly the greatest challenge to the territorial integrity of Poland * since the fall of communism.

by Lukasz Olejink

Lukasz Olejnik 

is an independent security researcher and advisor and former advisor to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Twitter: @lukOlejnik

This article was first published in English on November 9, 2021 in the magazine “ForeignPolicy.com” - as part of a cooperation, a translation is now also available to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.

* Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.

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© ForeignPolicy.com

List of rubric lists: © Maxim Guchek

Source: merkur

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