MINSK, October 26. /TASS/. The West used the migration crisis in 2021 to build up military groups and create tensions near Belarus' borders, Alexander Volfovich, the country’s Security Council Secretary, said on Wednesday.

"There are no longer any migrants, but tensions remain, large groupings remain, drills remain, and now there is talk of using tactical nuclear weapons. The situation is really difficult," the BelTA news agency quoted him as saying.

Volfovich noted that such actions are carried out as part of the West’s plans to drag Belarus into the process of "strangling" Russia "from all sides." "There was an attempt in 2020, which failed, to draw Belarus into this series of events and to tighten the ring around the Russian Federation, to squeeze it. All of this cannot help but raise eyebrows. And today, the whole military and political situation and numerous attempts by the Americans are aimed at drawing Belarus into the conflict," the Security Council Secretary said.

The migration crisis at the Belarusian border with Latvia, Lithuania and Poland escalated on November 8, 2021. Several thousand people, including migrants from the Middle East and Africa, approached the Polish border and attempted to enter Polish territory, tearing through the barbed wire fence. In 2021, Polish border security thwarted almost 40,000 attempts at illegal border crossings, 400 times more than in 2020.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko previously pointed out that Ukraine has deployed a group of up to 15,000 troops to the southern border of the republic. Minsk also repeatedly announced strengthening of the units of the country’s armed forces and NATO formations in Poland and the Baltic States. Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin stated that the armed forces were rotating tasks on the southern borders of the country and were ready to respond to possible provocations in the west and northwest directions.