German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday, September 11, called the situation with refugees on the border of Belarus and the European Union “a hybrid attack.”
“We are experiencing a kind of hybrid attack on the eastern border by refugees on the Belarusian border. <…> Regardless of attempts to provide humanitarian aid to people, the external borders of the EU should be protected, as we did in Greece, ”she said during a joint press conference with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, broadcast by TVP Info.
Earlier, on September 7, it was reported that the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) sent a special team to counter hybrid threats to Lithuania at the request of Vilnius.
On August 30, it became known that Poland would send its police officers to Lithuania to guard the border amid the migration crisis. It was noted that this was done at the request of Vilnius.
Lithuania, Latvia and Poland declare an increase in the number of detained illegal migrants on the border with Belarus. In connection with this problem, Lithuania declared an extreme situation at the state level in early July, and also began to erect a wall. The Latvian authorities introduced an emergency situation (ES) before November 10 due to the influx of illegal migrants. In Poland, they announced the construction of a fence on the border with Belarus. At the same time, the countries accuse Minsk of a hybrid attack.
In turn, the head of the Belarusian parliament’s commission on international affairs Andrei Savinykh, in an interview with Izvestia, pointed out that the republic is a transit country on the issue of migration, and the flow of illegal immigrants, which is currently observed, arose, among other things, due to the actions of the West.