WARSAW, November 21. / TASS /. Poland is considering the possibility of imposing strict sanctions against Belarus, including the closure of the border, transit and trade crossings, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Sunday at a joint press conference with his Estonian counterpart Kaja Kallas.
"We are considering [the implementation] of more and more serious economic sanctions, including the closure of the Polish-Belarusian border by the Polish side," the prime minister stated, noting that everything would depend on the Belarusian authorities’ actions. "We want to give [Belarusian President Alexander] Lukashenko a chance to step back and return the migrants to their home countries," Morawiecki went on to say.
"But the migrants haven’t returned yet," the head of the Polish Cabinet stressed. He also mentioned that there was a video showing how Belarusian services were instructing migrants on how to attack Polish security forces. "This means that the actions of the Belarusian services are likely to escalate the situation," Morawiecki noted.
"We are ready to close new crossings, transit and trade opportunities in order to exert economic pressure," the prime minister said.
"Nowadays, on the eastern border of Poland, we are dealing with a new type of war, in which migrants and disinformation serve as weapons, we are facing a hybrid war," the head of the government stated, blaming the Belarusian and Russian leadership for what was happening. According to the prime minister, apart from the migration crisis, the "artificially provoked energy crisis" and "Russia’s growing military activity near Ukraine" pose a threat to the eastern borders of the EU and NATO.
The migrant crisis escalated dramatically on November 8 at the border of Belarus with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, where migrants have been flocking to since the beginning of 2021. Several thousand people have approached the Polish border from Belarusian territory and are not leaving the border area. Some of them tried to storm into Poland by getting over the barbed wire fence. European Union nations have accused Minsk of deliberate escalation and called for sanctions. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that Western states are to shoulder the blame for the crisis as their actions make people flee from war.