MOSCOW, November 8. /TASS/. The real number of migrants on the Belarusian-Polish border is not very large. It is the political aspect of the Belarus-EU standoff that adds a great deal to the situation, the general director of the Russian International Affairs Council, Andrey Kortunov, told TASS on Tuesday.

He recalled that according to different estimates, there were 2,000-4,000 migrants on the Belarusian-Polish border at the moment, which is almost nothing in contrast to the migration flows that swept the European Union in 2015-2016. In his opinion, the number of migrants transiting Belarus to Europe is "unpleasant, but not lethal for Poland and Lithuania, let alone the European Union."

"The political dimension of the crisis is far more significant than its real content, because it has overlapped with the worsening of Minsk’s relations with the European neighbors. The problem is being politicized. Otherwise, it would have been considered purely technical," Kortunov said. "The severing of relations between Belarus and the EU countries has played a major role. Had there been any cooperation by migration services, had they worked together, then the deportation might have been conducted before all these people appeared in Belarus. Had there been cooperation, then the problem could have been minimized."

In the context of political confrontation Belarus has taken a firm stance, making it clear to the European countries that if they are reluctant to cooperate, then they will have to deal with the problem of migrants on their own, Kortunov said. He stressed that most of the migrants crossing Belarus towards Europe were Kurds from Iraq. Before, there had been direct flights between Baghdad and Minsk. Later, when the air links were terminated, migrants from the Middle East found other routes to Belarus, mostly via Istanbul, Kortunov said. Also, there are Kurdish organizations in Belarus and "possibly they act as guides."

"Migration flows are like water that gets through wherever possible. Once the process has commenced, it will be very hard to stop it. We have been able to see this for ourselves over many years of attempts at intercepting migrants in the Mediterranean. There were several routes and it was rather hard to plug them. This has been done more or less just recently. The western route through Libya still works, though. The eastern one has been neutralized to an extent somehow," Kortunov stressed.

More migration waves due

As Kortunov pointed out, the Europeans are seriously worried that if the current group of migrants manages to get into the EU across the Belarusian-Polish border, then a far larger wave of refugees, mostly from Afghanistan, will follow this well-trodden path.

"This situation is causing alarm not just in Poland, but in Germany as well, because everybody understands that Poland is a transit country, while their real aim is Germany. Grants and benefits are far higher there and also immigrant communities there," Kortunov explained.

At the same time, he stressed that if Poland managed to keep the border closed to illegal migrants, then they might try to settle in Belarus. In that case, it would be quite logical for Belarus to try to expel them.

"If one assumes that they will settle in Belarus, and not in the EU, their life would be better anyway than at the places they have fled. Possibly, this may prove an incentive for this migration to go on, albeit not on a very large scale. In that case, Belarus will be interested in sending them back, there from where they have arrived. It will depend on the effectiveness of the Belarusian organizations concerned, if this works," Kortunov said.

Also, if the illegal migrants fail to get into the EU, they may try to get into Russia. But even in this case, the expert predicts, they are unlikely to stay there for too long only to try to make their way to Europe via Finland or Norway. Some such incidents happened already to cause tensions in Russia’s relations with the European neighbors. For this reason, Moscow will exert every effort to prevent this scenario.

"I believe that most of these people will be struggling to get to the European Union, because in Russia they will have to compete with migrants from Central Asia and the South Caucasus. There are no large benefits like those in Germany. I believe that these migrants have no serious motives to try to get into Russia and stay there," Kortunov concluded.

Situation on the border

On Monday, several thousand migrants in Belarus approached the Polish border. Some of them tried to dismantle a barbed wire fence. Polish forces fired tear gas.

Since the beginning of 2021 more than 30,000 migrants have tried to cross the Belarusian-Polish border. Poland declared a state of emergency in the regions bordering on Belarus to keep all strangers away.