Tension is soaring in eastern Europe on account of the crisis on the border between Belarus and Poland. And the main powers are beginning to make a move: while NATO, that is, the US, makes maneuvers in the Black Sea, Putin’s Russia supports its ally Lukashenko with a deployment of bombers and paratroopers, which is also in charge of advertising with the corresponding video.
The flight of the Russian TU-160 super bombers – capable of dropping nuclear bombs – has been described as “very worrying” by the European Union.
“We are monitoring the situation and the information we have gathered so far is quite worrying,” said Peter Stano, spokesman for the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell.
The United States this week asked Russia to clarify its intentions amid “unusual military activity” along Ukraine’s borders, and said Washington was monitoring the situation “very closely.”
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby went so far as to assert that the United States was concerned about Russian troop movements, still on its own territory but close to the Ukraine border.
Putin, however, also does not want to push the crisis too far and has denied Lukashenko’s threat to close the gas pipeline that feeds the Central European countries if sanctions are imposed on Belarus. “Russia has been, is and will be a country that fulfills all the commitments aimed at ensuring that European consumers receive gas, the commitments of the signed contracts,” Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov hastened to declare.
The threat came in the midst of the crisis caused by the presence of thousands of immigrants, mostly from the Middle East, who are blocked on the border between Belarus and Poland , under harsh humanitarian conditions.
However, the European Union plans to announce new sanctions against Lukashenko next week.
The EU accuses Belarus of organizing these migrant movements, in response to international sanctions against the Lukashenko government, imposed after the violent crackdown on protesters after his re-election in 2020.
Veto on airplanes
On the other hand, the national airline of Belarus, Belavia, has ensured that it will not allow the boarding of citizens of Iraq, Syria and Yemen in Turkey, as it has alleged because the Turkish authorities have decided so due to the rebound in migratory flow at the border .
“By decision of the Turkish authorities, from November 12 the nationals of Iraq, Syria and Yemen will not be able to board flights from Turkey to Belarus,” reported the company, which has offered a refund of the ticket to affected passengers. according to the BelTA news agency.
Thousands of people crowd the Belarusian border with several European Union countries, mainly Poland, as a result of a massive arrival for which the community bloc blames Alexander Lukashenko’s regime directly, which has threatened all kinds of reprisals for external sanctions.
