2023-09-02 09:37:36
Pavel Matsukevich. Archive photo
The ex-diplomat talks about a conflict that could end in an iron curtain.
“Minsk not only does not make concessions, but tries to methodically respond to all grievances,” writes Pavel Matsukevich on his Lenin Pulse-19 channel. – A fresh example from Grodno: a passage named after Emil Chechko appeared there – a Polish soldier who asked for political asylum in Belarus in December 2021 and ended up committing suicide.
The piquancy is added by the fact that the Consulate General of Poland is located on the new passage of Emil Chechko. There is no need to equip your eyes with binoculars to consider this as a response to the recent renaming of the street in Bialystok, where the Belarusian Consulate General is located, into the Free Belarus Square.
There are reports of a decrease in the number of attempts to illegally cross the border of Belarus with the EU countries, in which, if desired, one can see the line of behavior of the regime. However, the tendency to speak about something definitely has not yet grown from these data.
Moreover, the day of the meeting of the Ministers of Internal Affairs of Poland and the Baltic States in Warsaw was marked by a serious incident on the Belarusian-Polish border involving 60 illegal migrants. This does not fit into the logic of appeasing the neighbors, which the official Minsk, as the puppeteer of the migration crisis, recognized by the international community, should follow. If he wants to bring down the degree of tension in relations with Poland and the Baltic countries.
There is doubt that the regime controls the migration crisis like a gate remote control or a TV. At least from the moment Iraqi and Turkish planes stopped flying to Minsk and the channel for illegal migrants moved to Russia. The Belarusian side does not control the border with it, but this is not the only thing.
The problem is that the faucet that regulates migration flows is now in the hands of the Kremlin. If Russia decides to come to grips with the supply of migrants to Europe, then the current flow, which is not yet comparable to what is happening on the Mediterranean borders of the European Union, could turn into an avalanche.
The regime is unlikely to be able to stop it, even if it suddenly considers it beneficial for itself to return to fulfilling its obligations to protect the border from illegal crossings. Although it would be nice if he did, thereby getting out of migration blackmail, which is dangerous for Belarus. Without this, the settlement of the migration crisis is basically impossible.
In the bottom line of the current episode of “Star Wars” there are no encouraging prospects yet. The parties, apparently, are still far from looking for a compromise in any other way than pressure and an exchange of “courtesies”. The calls and demands of one side are less and less likely to intersect with the capabilities of the other.
Taken together, all of this means that the iron curtain could descend at any moment. And both from that, so theoretically and from the other side. For example, under the pretext of a military threat from Poland.
Official Minsk has not yet made any such gestures, but on the contrary, it is promoting “visa-free travel” and is happy to regularly share data on the number of foreigners visiting Belarus.
However, our time of troubles and the very nature of the regime suggest taking into account such an option – that Lukashenka can also close the border, blocking entry and exit.
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