KIEV, November 24. /TASS/. Ukrainian servicemen and law enforcement agents began a special drill to stop potential migrants from infiltrating the border with Belarus, Deputy Head of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine Vladimir Nikiforenko said.
"A special border operation was coordinated for a future response to a possible complication of the situation jointly with interacting state structures and a corresponding plan was worked out," the press service quoted him as saying on the agency’s website.
According to the official, the threat of a migration crisis and the possibility of a migrant influx into the country remain on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border. He specified that the main task of those participating in the special operation is to prevent any illegal migrants from penetrating into Ukraine. According to him, in order to do so, the coordination of all participating agencies - the State Border Guard Service, the National Guard, the police, the armed forces and others - was ensured.
During the special operation, plans are in store to use aviation, including drones, for patrols. Additionally, it involves a substantial tightening of the border regime on the Ukrainian-Belarusian sector. Checkpoints will be set up on motorways in border districts, bus and railway stations will be inspected and preventive measures will be undertaken in populated localities near the border, the press service specified.
The migrant crisis on the Belarusian border with Latvia, Lithuania and Poland where Middle Eastern migrants have been amassing since the beginning of the year, quickly unraveled on November 8. Several thousand refugees approached the Polish border from Belarus and refused to leave the area, breaking down a barbed wire fence and attempting to cross into Poland. EU countries have accused Minsk of intentionally escalating the crisis and have called for sanctions. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko stated that Western countries themselves were to blame for this quagmire since these people were fleeing war in their homelands due to the West’s belligerent policies that have wreaked havoc in that part of the world.