Mr Lukashenko told hopeful asylum seekers that his country would not stop them from crossing over into the EU. He had his first public appearance at the border since the beginning of the crisis, which began this summer. Mr Lukashenko told them that they were free to go home or head west when they met migrants at a warehouse-turned- shelter.
His words followed an interview with the BBC in late November in which he said that it was absolutely possible that his Belarusian forces helped migrants cross into Poland. Experts say that Belarus' actions are in response to economic sanctions imposed by the EU. These measures were rolled out in June — one month before the influx of migrants — when the bloc introduced restrictive measures against Mr Lukashenko in response to the escalation of serious human rights violations and the violent repression of civil society, democratic opposition and journalists. After the forced landing of a Ryanair flight in Minsk on May 23, and the detention of journalist Raman Pratasevich and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega, they were also dished out.
In mid-November, the EU stepped up its sanctions as the migrant crisis bordered on a humanitarian scale, introducing a swathe of new measures. Professor Matthew Longo, a political scientist at the Leiden University in the Netherlands, suggested that sanctions are relatively ineffective and that the EU is unlikely to do anything to prevent Belarus from weaponising its border. He told Express.co. The issue of a border is an issue of sovereignty, and in so far as that is a value, the consequence of meddling with it is that bad people can do bad things to innocent people in their own borders, and that is an international principle that we want to uphold. The only way to get around is to get around something as we've seen, or something stronger like a reprimand. JUST IN: EU tries to ban the word Christmas as it is 'offensive'
The problem is that if country X wants to sanction country Y, there are all these other countries through to Z that end up becoming third party intermediaries. The other option is to invade. The evidence for this is not Belarus, but rather Ukraine, whatever else can be said about the EU. The EU spent 20 years trying to pull Ukraine into its European project. The region has been so closely associated with Russia for hundreds of years, making it difficult to shake its ties. Is the EU deal about to be CRUSHED? Judgement Day in Court REPORT Rishi Sunak makes state pension rise promise INSIGHT Grassroots Conservatives turn on Boris and choose surprising successor ANALYSIS While the modern-day Ukraine has its head turned towards the EU and Europe, Prof Longo said that the EU is unlikely to do anything regarding Belarus. He said that when Russia invaded Crimea and took Crimea, the EU went quiet. If the EU isn't going to react to that, there's no way they're going to react to a couple thousand people from somewhere else crossing into the bloc - it's just not going to do anything drastic like use force. Lukashenko is actually getting his will, at this point. Come on, they should know better. The International Organization for Migration and partners have increased aid missions along the Poland-Belarus border as weather conditions worsen and thousands of migrants are left living in freezing conditions in the woods.