DISINFO: Lithuania neglected its border and human traffickers took advantage of it
SUMMARY
Surely you heard that Poland is preventing a planned invasion, blackmail and an attempt of hybrid warfare by Belarus. But if we look months ago, when the first migrants coming mostly from Iraq showed up at the border between Belarus and Lithuania, we see that this place is a sort of blind and weak spot in the security of the border, because the Lithuanian border guards left it at its mercy. This is something that the mafias operating from the origin countries of those migrants know very well, and that’s why they send them there.
RESPONSE
The claim is part of an ongoing disinformation campaign on the migration crisis at the EU-Belarus borders, aiming to deflect attention away from Minsk’s responsibility in orchestrating it by accusing Western powers of creating the conditions for a wave of refugees.
There is plenty of evidence showing that Belarusian authorities engineered the crisis by creating a new migratory route in order to put pressure on the EU. Multiple investigations show (see also here) showed that the migrants were brought to Belarus from Iraq, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates in commercial flights, a trip encouraged and supported by Belarusian authorities. Information gathered also suggests that migrants are regularly transported by bus to the Belarusian-Lithuanian border. More information about Lukashenka's role in the organisation of the current migration crisis can be found here and here.
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 other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that the US and the EU are to blame for the migration crisis at the EU-Belarus border, that the EU organised the crisis and will continue doing so in other countries, or that the EU adopts sanctions on Belarus to manage its own internal contradictions.
This disinformation narrative appeared in the same TV programme as the claims that “Fake news about the Belarusian border crisis is part of a total war by the West”, and that “The US is instigating war in Ukraine to boycott the Nord Stream 2 project”.