Belarus: Hundreds of people are still waiting at the Polish border - sanctions against the west

Created: 01/01/2022, 11:34 AM

From: Bettina Menzel

Refugees in an emergency shelter in the Brusgi logistics center in the Grodno region (archive picture).

© Pavel Bednyakov / SNA / Imago

Hundreds of people are still waiting on the border between Belarus and Poland.

Meanwhile, Belarusian sanctions against the West came into force.

• There are still no signs of a solution in the Belarusian-Polish border crisis.

• Around 600 women, children and men are still waiting at the Belarusian-Polish border

  (see first report)

  .

• Alexander Lukashenko, the “last dictator in Europe”, has initiated counter-sanctions.

  That could cost the West millions of euros.

• This news ticker is continuously updated.

Brusgi, Belarus - Hundreds of people are still waiting at the Belarusian-Polish border.

Around 600 children, women and men are housed in the warehouse of a logistics center in Brusgi in the Grodno region of Belarus and are hoping to enter the European Union.

Meanwhile, Belarus has launched counter-sanctions that could cost Western states millions.

Belarusian-Polish border crisis remains unsolved

At least one man who had waited a long time at the border managed to enter Germany in the past week. This is reported by the German Press Agency and is based on information from the family of the fugitive. Around 600 people are still waiting at the border. According to its own statements, Poland registered a total of 40,000 attempts by people to cross the border from Belarus into Poland in 2021.

On January 1, Belarus entered into economic sanctions against western countries. The import of many goods - such as meat and dairy products - from the USA, the European Union and other countries is therefore prohibited from the beginning of this year. According to the government, this is a reaction to the "discriminatory policies and unfriendly actions taken in relation to our country". Minsk puts the damage caused by the sanctions for Western countries at around half a billion euros. While the EU and Belarus are getting further and further away, Minsk and the Kremlin are also drawing closer together economically. Russia and Belarus have a long-standing friendship that has not always been free of conflict.

The temperatures on the Polish-Belarusian border reach minus degrees.

© Jakub Kaminski / Eastnews / Imago

This is behind the humanitarian catastrophe on the Belarusian-Polish border

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has been in power since 1994 and is considered the last dictator in Europe.

He is accused of using refugees as a "weapon" and of having instigated a hybrid war on the Belarusian-Polish border.

Lukashenko is said to have smuggled refugees from the Middle East into Belarus and brought them from Minsk to the EU borders.

This is seen as a reaction to the sanctions imposed by Western countries against Belarus and is intended to serve to destabilize the European Union.

It is true that there is talk of a hybrid war, that is, of “irregular” activities below the threshold of an armed conflict.

But the political expert Lukasz Olejnik sees the danger of a simmering military escalation, since both sides have positioned armed forces on the border.