MINSK, November 26. /TASS/. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has forewarned that the influx of refugees seeking to get to the EU through the Belarusian-Polish border will mount even further during the winter and spring unless this problem is sorted out now, he told migrants on Friday near the Bruzgi transport and logistics center.

"We will persistently ask Western countries to help you," the BelTA news agency quotes Lukashenko as saying. "It’s not only a human issue, I’m looking further down the road. If we don’t iron out this migration crisis now, it will be larger and more extreme in the winter and spring. We realize that a massive influx of refugees will converge here and it will be impossible to contain them at the border," the Belarusian president forewarned. He highlighted the fact that it is necessary to settle this problem now, before it snowballs out of control.

Lukashenko urged the refugees to make a decision: either return home, or endure hardships attempting to get into the EU.

The migration crisis on Belarus’ borders with Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, where migrants began to flock to since the beginning of this year, went into high gear on November 8. Several thousand people approached the Polish border on the Belarusian side and tried to cross into Poland. In an attempt to storm the border, they broke a barbed wire fence. About 2,000 people were accommodated in the Bruzgi transport and logistics center near the border with Poland, where conditions were created for their temporary residence. EU member-states have blamed Minsk for the intentional escalation of the crisis and called for more sanctions. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that in this situation the responsibility rested squarely on Western countries, whose policies had forced people to flee from war.