Roving Periscope: East Europe’s “hybrid war” against the West!

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: Imagine hapless Muslim migrants and refugees trying to flee the war-torn countries of the Middle East being used by Turkey, Russia, and Belarus as ‘missiles’ against Poland and Western Europe to wage a “hybrid war” against the European Union to settle political scores.

It happened this week. So much so that Belarus and Poland have gone to the brink of war.

The situation is so alarming that Russia, which denies involvement in the crisis, dispatched two nuclear-capable strategic bombers to patrol Belarusian airspace for the second day in a row on Thursday, according to reports.

The EU, dominated by the biggest Catholic nation France and the largest Protestant country Germany, has stonewalled the attempts of the Russian and Belarusian Orthodox Church to sneak into the Continent for religious reasons as well. Poland, predominantly Catholic, is a member of the 27-member EU while Russia, Belarus, and Turkey, despite their attempts, have not been allowed in.

Besides, the EU members, including Poland, which shares borders with Belarus, have condemned the ‘authoritarian’ governments in Moscow and Minsk and imposed sanctions. Turkey, which has been trying to resurrect the Ottoman Empire after a century of its demise—it extended into Eastern and Central Europe until 1920—smelt an opportunity in this intra-Christian fracas and jumped into the fray, although Ankara is also a NATO member against Russia!

This is the crux of the current crisis.

Poland and other EU countries have for months accused Belarus of encouraging people to illegally cross the Polish border in revenge for Western sanctions against Minsk, after the disputed August 2020 election that handed its controversial President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term. Minsk has denied those charges.

But Lukashenko, with Moscow’s support, sniffed an opportunity to get even with the EU, and Poland, in the Muslim refugees from Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, trying to gate-crash into the EU for a better life. In this “hybrid war”, Turkey offered help to Belarus: its official airlines flew hundreds of Muslim refugees and dumped them on the Belarus-Poland border from where they are currently trying to enter the EU ahead of the biting winter. This has created a humanitarian crisis, as some of these refugees have died.

After dumping some 2,000 Muslim refugees, the recently FATF grey-listed Turkey backtracked, and so did Belarus. Now, these stranded Muslim refugees are expecting to make it to the EU on ‘humanitarian grounds.

On Friday, Belarusian state-owned airline Belavia announced to stop allowing citizens of Iraq, Syria, and Yemen to board flights from Turkey to Belarus at the “request” of Turkish authorities.

But a wary Warsaw has deployed over 15,000 soldiers on its borders with Belarus, which is still trying to push in the ‘weaponized’ Muslim refugees into the EU. The EU is weighing new sanctions on Lukashenko’s government and Belavia for their “hybrid attack”.

Turkey, burdened with four million mainly Syrian refugees, is keeping its options open. It had earlier rejected any portrayal of Ankara and its airline “as part of the problem”.

The western members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Thursday condemned Minsk, as thousands of migrants are trapped in freezing conditions, without access to adequate supplies or medical care, along the Belarus-Poland border.

Estonia, France, Ireland, Norway, the United States, and the United Kingdom raised concerns over the situation during a closed-door meeting of the 15-member body, the media reported.

“We condemn the orchestrated instrumentalization of human beings whose lives and wellbeing have been put in danger for political purposes by Belarus, with the objective of destabilising neighbouring countries and the European Union’s external border and diverting attention away from its own increasing human rights violations,” they said in a statement.

They also accused Lukashenko of becoming a threat to regional stability and called for a “strong international reaction” to hold Minsk accountable, pledging “to discuss further measures that we can take”.

But Russia, a long-time ally and creditor of Lukashenko, rejected the allegations and blamed Poland and Lithuania, which also shares a border with Belarus and has reported an increase in crossing attempts in recent days, for mistreating migrants and refugees.

“There are a lot of cases when Polish and Lithuanian border guards beat migrants and pushed them back to Belarusian territory,” said Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN.

“I would say that this is a total shame and a total violation of any possible international conventions and rules.”

The Belarusian Ministry of Defence said on Thursday that in response to the Polish military build-up near the shared border, it would take “appropriate response measures” independently and together with Moscow.