From a German perspective, the number of migrants, mainly from Iraq, who currently arrive in Lithuania daily from Belarus may seem small.
But the currently around one hundred people are more every day than have come to the EU in this way over the past two years over the whole year.
This is a clear political message: it is a response announced by the Belarusian ruler, Alexandr Lukashenko, to Lithuania's support for the democracy movement in his country. With the same inhuman cynicism with which he treats his own people, he instrumentalizes people in search of a better life in order to cause difficulties for the Lithuanian government.
When the Lithuanian government calls the current situation a "hybrid war", it is not directed against the migrants who are now entering the country. After Turkish President Erdogan at the beginning of 2020, Lukashenko is the closest neighbor, who is trying to build political pressure on Europe in this way and to play off the demand for respect for democratic principles against the unresolved questions of European refugee policy. That is why what is happening on the Belarusian-Lithuanian border is a matter that concerns the whole of the EU, despite the unspectacular figures.