After the US, Britain and other western countries introduced new sanctions over its government's human rights abuses and the orchestration of a migration crisis on the border with Europe, Belarus threatened to retaliate.
The Belarusian foreign ministry said on Friday that the whole policy was to economically strangle Belarus, while the country s authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko called the pressure unprecedented. The foreign ministry said that there would be tough, asymmetric but appropriate measures in response. Officials didn't say what those measures would be.
Belarus is ready to go to extremes in its growing diplomatic standoff with western countries. Lukashenko is accused of encouraging thousands of people from the Middle East to enter Europe via Belarus in a retaliation for earlier sanctions related to his efforts to arrest and punish his domestic opposition.
The migration crisis has subsided as Belarus has begun to pull asylum seekers back from the border, sending hundreds of flights to Iraq and housing more than 1,000 people in a logistics warehouse where conditions are extremely basic.
Poland reported 46 attempts to cross the border on Friday, including what it called violent attempts near two border guard posts. Belarusian forces have been accused of guiding people to the border and cutting through border defences. Polish troops have been accused of beating and mistreating people who crossed the border.
Rights groups have criticized the European Commission after it proposed that three countries sharing a border with Belarus should be allowed to hold people in special asylum processing centres for up to 16 weeks, up from the current maximum of four.
Western governments had vowed to sanction Minsk but the hardline reactions of states bordering Belarus toward migrants and refugees exacerbated tensions in the economic bloc.
The EU, UK, US, and Canada demand that the Lukashenko regime stop its orchestrating of irregular migration across its border with the EU in a targeted punishment of organisations that allowed the movement of thousands of people from Iraq, Syria, and other countries to Europe in a path that became known as the Belarus route. This comes at a substantial cost for those in Belarus or in third countries that allow illegal crossing of the EU's external borders. The UK sanctioned eight Belarusian officials and imposed an asset freeze on Belaruskali, a state-owned potash fertiliser, in an effort to target a major source of revenue and foreign currency for the Lukashenko regime. The US targeted 20 individuals, 12 entities, and imposed restrictions on holding Belarusian debt with a maturity greater than 90 days in its fifth round of sanctions.
The economic sanctions also targeted the state-owned tourism company Tsentrkurort, a cargo carrier accused of shipping thousands of tons of ammunition and weapons to conflict zones such as Libya and Belarusian defence and potash companies.
The US sanctioned Lukashenko's middle son, Dmitry.