DISINFO: Accusations against Belarus for its role in migration crisis are false
SUMMARY
The EU accused Belarus of organising the migration crisis at Belarus' borders with the EU Member States. However, Belarus has no money to protect the border due to the sanctions the EU levied on Minsk.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative accusing the West or the EU of being responsible for the migration crisis at the Belarus-EU border.
The EU did not recognise the falsified results of the Belarusian Presidential election on 9 August 2020 or the new mandate claimed by Alyaksandr Lukashenka. On 2 October 2020, the Council imposed the first round of restrictive measures over ongoing repression. The EU imposed two more rounds of restrictive measures against the Belarusian regime in 2020, followed by the fourth package of sanctions in view of the escalation of serious human rights violations and the forced landing of a Ryanair flight.
Belarusian authorities halted cooperation with the EU on migration over the sanctions. There is plenty of evidence that the Belarusian authorities have instigated the ongoing migration crisis in Lithuania, Poland and Latvia. Lukashenka's regime is using migrants from the Middle East as "political and hybrid" tools against Lithuania and the entire EU. Commissioner Ylva Johansson said, inter alia: "The authoritarian regime in Belarus is exploiting human beings for political reasons: this is completely unacceptable."
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. The vice-president of the European Commission and high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy (HRVP) Josep Borrell stressed that responsibility for the migration crisis falls on the Lukashenka regime.
See our articles on the Belarus migrants situation here and here.