MINSK, November 9. /TASS/. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Tuesday that he doesn’t rule out a further aggravation of the migrant situation at the border with Poland.
"I am afraid this confrontation at the border because of migrants may lead to an acute phase. This is a breeding ground for provocations. <…> I am warning the Belarusian military: be careful," he said in an interview with Igor Korotchenko, editor-in-chief of Russia’s National Defense magazine, that was cited by the BelTA agency.
He drew attention to the actions of EU law enforcers against the migrants. "We never shoot above heads, like they do. Our helicopters never fly over them. When a helicopter is 20-30 meters above the ground, the wind literally blows these people, and their children over. They are simply intimidating them," Lukashenko said.
According to the Belarusian president, the West is indulging in a fault-finding exercise with Belarus in a bid to divert attention from its own problems. "Inside Poland, Lithuania. Take Germany — the so-called transition of power. Take Great Britain, France. They have way too many problems," he noted. "Their peoples are discontent and how can they level this out? To point to someone and declare him an idiot, scum, a scoundrel who will attack, say, Poland tomorrow."
The situation at the Polish-Belarusian border deteriorated dramatically on Monday, when several thousand migrants approached the Polish border. Some of them tried to tear down the barbed wire fence and break through into Poland. Polish law enforcers used tear gas to stop the migrants.
EU countries accuse Minsk of deliberate escalation of the crisis and call for more sanctions against Belarus. Meanwhile, Lukashenko said that the blame for this situation rests on Western countries because people are fleeing their countries gripped by hostilities provoked by their actions.