Belarus shuts border with Ukraine but encourages illegal immigration into Lithuania

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS - In Brief 03 Jul 2021 by Alex Teddy
On July 2 Lukashenka announced that the border with Ukraine is being shut with immediate effect. He claimed that terrorists are infiltrating into his country from Ukraine and it is all a Western sponsored coup plot. He tried a similar trick in 2020 saying that Russian mercenaries who he had arrested had come to overthrow him but he did not close the Russian border. The suspects were all released within weeks. The president did not provide corroborative particulars of the alleged coup plot. He claimed that enormous quantities of firearms had been smuggled into Belarus from Ukraine. His government then said that Germany, Lithuania, the USA, Poland and Ukraine all housed terrorist units aimed at ousting him. He claimed that the terrorists planned to target a Russian military communication center in Belarus. This is the sort of accusation designed to copperfasten Russian support for him. Ukraine said that the allegations were ludicrous. Until early 2021 relations between Lukashenka and Zelensky were warm despite their very different personalities and ideologies. As Lukashenka is desperate for Russian support he has had to take an anti-Ukrainian line. Ukraine also recognised that being friendly with Belarus risked alienating NATO. On July 2 Lithuania said that illegal immigrants are coming across the border from Belarus in increasing numbers. 150 were arrested in one day. In the whole of 2020 only 75 illegal immigrants were caught coming in from Belarus. They are mostly Iraqis. Lithuania says that Belarus is facilitating this as a way of punishing the Lithuanians for sanctions. It is a tactic that Lukashenka learnt from his idol: Gaddafi. He knows that Western countries str...

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