It is understood that most of the refugees and
Late on Tuesday, a Polish deputy interior minister tweeted that the border with Belarus is sealed and that the soldiers have been there for a week.
Poland, like Lithuania and other Baltic nations, accuses the authoritarian government of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of sending people across their borders.
They believe Minsk’s moves are retaliatory.
The European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...imposed sanctions on Belarus following a disputed presidential election last year — which the West saw as rigged, as well as for harsh repressions on Belarusian protesters.
On Wednesday, EU ministers also held emergency talks "to determine concrete measures and forms of assistance to the affected states in managing and containing illegal crossings at the border with Belarus, also from the aspect of security at this section of the external EU border," the Slovenian EU presidency said.
More than 4,100 refugees and
Lithuania’s border guard service released video footage on Wednesday which it said reveals that
After talks with Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte on Wednesday, EU Parliament President David Sassoli accused Lukashenko, once dubbed Europe’s last dictator, of "exploiting these poor people, men and women."
"I have seen these outrageous actions when officials push people across the border. It is both an issue of human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal
liberty...
, and also a question of protecting the border of the EU," Sassoli said. "It is an organised activity of the Lukashenko regime."
On the eve of the meeting, German Chancellor Angela Merkel
...chancellor of Germany and the impetus behind Germany's remarkably ill-starred immigration program. Merkel used to be referred to by Germans as
Mom. Now they make faces at her for inundating the country with Moslem colonists...
and Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas accused Lukashenko of launching a "hybrid attack" against the 27-nation bloc by channelling
"We agree that this is hybrid aggression that uses human beings," Merkel said after their talks in Berlin.
Kallas said that "this is no refugee crisis, but this is a hybrid attack on the European Union."
Merkel said she would raise the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin
...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...
in Moscow on Friday.