Responding to new border restrictions imposed by its neighbours, Belarus’ leader Alexander Lukashenko has said Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland are making things worse for their own people.
“I don’t really understand Lithuania and Latvia. They are probably getting ahead of things [...], they want to show off. But it will backfire on them,” Lukashenko was quoted by the Belarusian state news agency Belta on Friday. “If they want to close off, let them close off. We don’t go to Lithuania and Latvia anyway, we don’t conduct business through them either. Who will they make worse off? They will only make things worse for themselves and for their own people.”
Last week, Lithuania closed two of the six checkpoints on its border with Belarus, in Šumskas and Tverečius. Officials explained the decision as a response to threats from the Wagner group in Belarus and as a measure to fight smuggling.
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Meanwhile, Latvia has announced it was beefing up border protection in response to illegal migration from Belarus. Over the past week, the number of people attempting to cross the border from Belarus into Latvia has varied from 11 to 143 each day. In Lithuania, the number ranged from a few to several dozen.
Meanwhile, Poland announced it was deploying up to 10,000 troops to the border with Belarus. Some of them will provide direct support to the border guards and patrols, while others will be in reserve.
In early August, Lithuania and Poland said that there were around 4,000 Wagner troops in Belarus.
Next week, Baltic and Polish interior ministers are meeting in Warsaw to discuss options of completely closing their borders with Belarus.
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