Vladimir Poutine “is a bit of a Lukashenko hostage”, because “he cannot lose this buffer country between the West and Russia”, said Thursday, November 11 on franceinfo Andreï Vaitovich, Franco-Belarusian journalist, who covered the anti-regime demonstrations of 2020 for several media, in particular Radio France. Several thousand migrants are massed in Belarus on the border with Poland. Westerners accuse Alexander Lukashenko’s regime of wanting to destabilize Europe with the tacit support of Russia. The United Nations Security Council meets behind closed doors on Thursday.
franceinfo: What do you expect today from this emergency meeting of the UN Security Council?
Andrei Vaitovich: It’s difficult to say because we know that Russia is part of the Security Council, so, in any case, it has the right of veto. I don’t expect much. But it is very important that the Belarusian subject is brought up today. On the other hand, what must be remembered is that the migration crisis did not start three weeks ago. It really started after Lukashenko’s fraudulent re-election and unprecedented crackdown (in August 2020).
Why has this migration crisis worsened in recent weeks?
We see migrants instrumentalised by the regime. We have evidence, witness videos showing images of people arriving en masse by plane. Then, they are brought by border guards to the border with the European Union. They are provided with tools to notably break the barbed wire installed by Poland and Lithuania. Since the end of the summer, Lithuania and Poland have offered to apply for asylum directly at embassies in Minsk. And to date, there is zero demand. We see that for three days, when the migrants were pushed back by the Belarusian security forces to Poland, we know that they still tried to cross the border legally. But they were once again driven back by the Belarusian siloviki (in charge of the Martian of order) who pushed them towards the forest. And this is where they are stuck today.
What is Moscow’s role in this crisis?
It is obvious that Vladimir Putin cares a lot about Lukashenko. Lukashenko would not have been president for a year, if there was no support from Russia. What is embarrassing for Vladimir Putin is the unprecedented repression that Lukashenko has been carrying out for a year. He is a bit of a hostage to Lukashenko himself because he knows he cannot lose this buffer country between Europe, the West and Russia. This is already the case with a large part of Ukraine, I am not of course talking about the annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine, but it is true that for Putin, it is a strategic question. We are already seeing the evidence. On Wednesday, he sent his bombers which will now patrol the border with Europe. So, we are already seeing the direct interference of Russia and especially the official meetings between the Lukashenko regime and the representatives of the Kremlin which have multiplied in recent days, in particular to strengthen integration with Russia.