Belarus has “every reason” to “break through a corridor” to transit Belarusian goods through Lithuania, Pavel Muraveiko, First Deputy State Secretary of the Belarusian Security Council, said. The official made such a statement during an “ideological seminar” in Minsk, Zerkalo independent Belarusian media reported.
It is about the transit of goods through Lithuania to the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia through the Suwałki Gap. This territory connects Poland with the Baltic States and also separates the territory of the Kaliningrad Oblast and Belarus.
Lithuania introduced restrictions on the transit of Belarusian goods last February. Vilnius also banned the transit and transshipment of oil products from Belarus in 2021.
“Lithuania actually forbade us to move our goods across the border. According to all norms of international law, such a step belongs to economic aggression. From the perspective of banal logic, we have every reason to cut through a vitally important corridor for us by force of arms,” the representative of the Security Council of Belarus said.
Muraveiko also reminded that Lithuania stopped issuing Belarusian tourist visas and closed part of the border crossings. The official believes that no one would even condemn Belarus for such actions. Still, Belarus will probably not risk “breaking through the corridor” due to “unprecedented pressure from the West.”
“It would be important to quickly capture the Suwałki Gap to cut off the NATO allies’ land route to the Baltic States in case of a hypothetical war with Russia. Concerns about the corridor’s security for Lithuania and Poland were voiced long before the full-scale invasion. For example, the countries agreed to strengthen the protection of this border section back in 2019,” European Pravda explains.
Meanwhile, increasingly aggressive propaganda activities of Belarus and Russia are recorded in Poland, said Stanisław Żaryn, the commissioner of the Polish government for the security of the information space.
Propaganda complements the operation to destabilize the Polish border with the help of artificially stimulated migration pressure. The narrative that Poland will continue to be riddled with Russophobia comes to the fore, Żaryn says.
The intensification of the operation accusing Poland of crimes against illegal migrants, as well as the sharp strengthening of the narrative about “Polish Russophobia,” can be seen as a form of pressure on the future government, the Polish official added.
This year alone, 19,000 people tried to enter Poland from Belarus. For more than two years, self-proclaimed President Lukashenko has been facilitating the arrival of citizens of Africa and the Middle East at the border. The dictator also organizes provocations by migrants against Polish border guards.
With a hybrid crisis, Lukashenko is trying to take revenge on the European Union for sanctions after its repression against the Belarusian opposition and civil society, according to Poland and the Baltic States.
Photo: sb.by; European Pravda.
