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In recent weeks, tensions have escalated on the border between Belarus and Poland, as thousands of asylum seekers are trying to cross into Poland, a member of the European Union. The visa process in Belarus has attracted many people from countries devastated by the Middle East war to reach EU territory.
When Poland expanded its military to the border to stop the entry of asylum seekers, thousands of men, women and children were left stranded on the Belarusian border and it became political football between Belarus and Poland.
The crisis and the parallel escalation of tensions between Poland, Belarus and Russia have served governments on all sides to meet their foreign and domestic agendas.
It is now clear that the border humanitarian catastrophe was carried out by Belarusian President Aleksander Lukashenko, who has been punished and isolated by the EU since last year’s presidential election mistakes.
Belarusian authorities channeled the flow of asylum seekers to the borders of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, refused to accept the results of the vote and are now taking over the majority of Belarusian political refugees and exiled Kua government members. It is clear that Lukashenko wants to confront the open subversion of the regime in these countries.
But it’s not just western neighbors who want to put pressure on Minsk. The border crisis is part of his broader strategy of blackmailing the West and Russia, with the prospect of a worldwide conflict.
Belarus is Russia’s closest ally and is officially part of an entity known as Russia and the Union of Belarus. The latter is largely on paper, but offers a common defense policy between the two countries and free movement, i.e. the Belarusian border with Poland and the two Baltic states is Russia’s outer border, which separates its security zone from NATO. . Therefore, any conflict on this frontier by extension becomes a conflict between Russia and NATO, and that is what is now trying to shape the Polish far-right government.
In a recent interview, Lukashenko went so far as to threaten to block the Yamal pipeline that supplies Russian gas to the EU via Belarus. On Tuesday, the Russian news agency TASS reported that the Belarusian oil pipeline operator Gomeltransneft had temporarily restricted its oil supply to Poland via the Druzhba pipeline after unforeseen maintenance work began.
However, many black commentators in Western and Eastern Europe have pointed a finger at Moscow as the driving force behind the border crisis, saying Lukashenko’s threats should be punished by the Kremlin. At the same time, senior US officials made radical demands on Russia to build troops with a view to invading Ukraine.
The logic of these allegations is difficult to understand. Russia is in the middle of a four-month period in which German energy regulators should ensure Nord Stream 2, a pipeline that will deliver gas directly to the EU, avoiding Ukraine and Belarus. On Tuesday, Germany announced that it was suspending the certification process for technical reasons – a move that would further delay the project and be interpreted by the Kremlin as a deliberate enemy.
It is not clear why Russia wants to organize a border crisis by directly threatening Germany (where most asylum seekers are going) and at the same time wanting to invade Ukraine at this time. Isn’t Nord Stream 2 designed as a super-weapon that will bring Ukraine to its knees, taking away the revenue from gas traffic, the same as the black commentators who have been claiming for years? If so, why invade Ukraine now?
Conversely, with regard to Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, the logic of inducing irresponsible behavior in order to unload Nord Stream 2 seems more credible. That would be in the interest of the US, which wanted to press Germany to cancel the almost completed project.
At least it seems like a reaction that sees the construction of the Russian army around Ukraine as Russia crosses the red lines in the West, as Russian President Vladimir Putin stated in a speech on the national situation earlier this year.
In an interview with Rossiya TV on November 13, he clearly linked the construction to the Black Sea without anticipating the arrival of American warships, along with the October 20 nuclear-powered bombers. To these recent events, Russia responded. he sent his bombings to fly over Belarus near Poland.
Ukraine has also escalated tensions. In October, reports of Bayonne drones built by the Turkish army against Russian-backed forces using the Turkish-backed forces appeared in Donbas. Putin is also carrying out a legal attack on Viktor Medvedchuk in Ukraine and raping his media empires, accusing him of promoting Russian narratives.
Moreover, there is a Polish angle in the constant crisis. It serves as a useful distraction for the far-right Polish government, which finds itself embroiled in a bitter conflict with the EU over the rule of law. Last month, the Polish Constitutional Court overturned some provisions of the EU Treaty on the grounds that they were incompatible with the country’s constitution. This decision has been the biggest challenge for the integrity of the union since Brexit.
The crisis is also an opportunity for the Polish government to present itself as a “defender” of “European borders” against an invasion perceived from the East. It is also an opportunity for the right-wing government to promote more xenophobia in Polish society. Racist tirades against immigrants are a cornerstone of Poland’s far-right policy.
But while the Polish government is taking anti-Russian rhetoric and stance, its internal policy bears a strong resemblance to the Kremlin. With the rule of law deteriorating and the independence of the judiciary gradually weakening, the ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) seems to be pulling a page out of the Moscow game book. As if to copy Putin’s strategy, he is aggressively promoting “traditional values” that include homophobic legislation and, beyond Russia, “declared LGBT-free zones” in many municipalities and a complete ban on abortion.
The Kremlin’s favorite tactic is to support government-controlled toxic media that underestimate the opposition and circulate fakes, something the PiS has also done.
The smoke screen of geopolitics has long allowed Poland and other Eastern European countries to escape violations of democratic procedures and human rights. Russia’s mythological otherness and supposedly inherent belligerence stand out. The reality is, however, that Putin’s regime, unrestricted by the restrictions of the rule of law that membership of the EU entails, is just one grotesque example of the authoritarian far-right trend that is taking over the entire Eastern European region.
The ghosts of an enemy in Russia and the problems on the borders of Eastern Europe also benefit certain political parties in the West. They feed conflict lobbyists and military-industrial groups to increase defense spending. They feed on the divisions and fears of conflagration, undermining the work of those who truly advocate for the advancement of democracy and liberalism in post-communist spaces.
This war industry is perpetuating dictatorships, such as those of Putin and Lukashenko, by constantly offering opportunities to increase belligerent rhetoric and raise the banner of a threat to the nation.
Finally, those who suffer the effects of fabricated crises and rising tensions are ordinary people who have to bear the brunt of far-right politics and war-centered economies.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
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