A migrant crisis orchestrated by strongman Lukashenko

Alexan­der Lukashenko has been the pres­i­dent of Be­larus since 1994, and has ruled the for­mer So­viet re­pub­lic with an iron fist. In the sum­mer of 2020, much of Be­laru­sian so­ci­ety re­volted. Fed up with cor­rup­tion, they com­plained that the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion had been a scam and that there were too few op­por­tu­ni­ties in the coun­try.

The protests ended with thou­sands ar­rested and beaten by se­cu­rity forces and a dis­or­gan­ised op­po­si­tion in exile. Thanks to the in­valu­able sup­port of Russ­ian pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin, the up­ris­ing lasted a few weeks, but it was not enough to un­seat Lukashenko, who is seen as one of Eu­rope’s last dic­ta­tors.

Emerg­ing vic­to­ri­ous from the at­tempted up­ris­ing, Lukashenko was hit by heavy sanc­tions from the Eu­ro­pean Union, caus­ing him to hit back at what he knows is the EU’s Achilles heel: im­mi­gra­tion. In No­vem­ber, a new mi­gra­tion cri­sis erupted that was rem­i­nis­cent of the sum­mer of 2015, when thou­sands fled the Syr­ian con­flict. This time, many of the mi­grants are from Afghanistan, where the Tal­iban re­gained power last sum­mer, as well as cit­i­zens from other places af­flicted with vi­o­lence.

Lukashenko did not miss his op­por­tu­nity to desta­bilise the EU and used the mi­grant cri­sis to put mem­bers like Poland and Lithua­nia on the ropes. The Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion has ac­cused the Minsk regime of trans­port­ing peo­ple to the Pol­ish bor­der. The Pol­ish gov­ern­ment claims that more than 30,000 peo­ple had tried to cross the bor­der in 2021, some 17,000 since Oc­to­ber.

Lukashenko has used the same strat­egy that Turk­ish pres­i­dent Recep Tayyip Er­do­gan once used, se­cur­ing fi­nan­cial aid to pre­vent mi­grants from en­ter­ing Eu­rope. It is not his only weapon, how­ever, as the Be­laruss­ian pres­i­dent has also threat­ened to cut off gas to the EU. “In Eu­rope they turn on the heat­ing and threaten us with even more sanc­tions and the idea of clos­ing their bor­ders. What if we cut off the gas? I rec­om­mend they think well be­fore­hand. If they im­pose ad­di­tional and un­ac­cept­able sanc­tions on us, we will re­spond,” Lukashenko said be­fore the end of the year.

fea­ture eu­ro­pean union