Relations between the EU and Belarus were already icy cold when Belarus forced a passenger plane into Belarusian airspace in May and arrested opposition activist and journalist Roman Protasevich.

Alexander Lukashenko's regime had brutally crushed the mass protests, but this had an additional international dimension.

The EU imposed sanctions on Belarus, to which President Lukashenko, for his part, replied that Belarus no longer intended to prevent drug smuggling and illegal migration across the border into the EU.

Dual motives

In fact, the setback was not to be seen between the fingers but to actively contribute to migration.

By helping migrants from the Middle East to the EU border, pressure has been put on countries that do not want to receive migrants but are at the same time committed to protecting human rights.

From Minsk's perspective, two flies are struck in one blow.

Playing on the reluctance of EU countries to accept migrants fuels tensions both within individual countries and between EU members.

Countries that are already close to impossible to agree on migration issues.

Secondly, according to media reports, migrants pay thousands of dollars to get to the EU from their countries of origin, mainly from Iraq.

The money ends up in the pockets of Belarusian officials.

Rising death toll

Both national governments and EU representatives call Belarus' action for an attack with migrants as weapons.

Rightly so, even if it is to be said that in practice it is understood that the migrants themselves suffer the most.

Several people are said to have died at the border, at least seven according to Poland, but the exact figure is not known.

In English, the term "weaponisation" is dense to describe how Belarus cynically exploits the situation.

In Sweden, one can almost hear commentators gritting their teeth over the Swedish language's lack of an elegant equivalent.

The term "hybrid war" has become all the more frequent.

But while it is easier to translate into Swedish, it is instead drawn with a great blur.

No "new" war

In very general terms, it is about how military and non-military measures are combined to achieve military goals.

Examples of non-military are, for example, cyberattacks, propaganda, disinformation and other economic or political tools.

A problem with the concept is that there have hardly ever been any wars, apart from one or another party Risk, which only consisted of two sides shooting at each other.

A second problem is that military observers often seem to mean one thing: part of or a precursor to "ordinary" war.

Political analysts often seem to mean something else: an alternative to "ordinary" war, if one country wants to harm another.

Requires no genius

Belarus's actions can possibly be classified as a hybrid war according to the latter definition, but to do all kinds of nonsense one country can expose another to "war" is to dilute the expression.

It can be quite serious anyway.

Some also seem to assume that it is in fact Russia that is behind Belarus' actions.

That can of course be true and it is clear that Russia is looking at it happily.

But it does not take the capacity that Belarus lacks to see the EU's Achilles heel migration and benefit from it.

Turkish leader Erdogan has already done so for several years and others before that.

All that is required is belief in international relations such as a zero-sum game and a neat scoop of cynicism.

Two geopolitical staples.