Belarus, EU ambassadors' okay to new sanctions against Minsk

President Lukashenko in a recent image

• Migrants, Poland bans access to media and NGOs at the border.

  Kaminski: "Security reasons"

• Belarus, two thousand migrants transferred.

  New conversation between Putin and Lukashenko

• Ukraine, soldiers ready to shoot migrants and wall on the border with Belarus

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01 December 2021 The crisis on the border between Poland and Belarus, both on the humanitarian and diplomatic fronts, still at the center of European determinations. Gathered in Coreper (the European Committee of Permanent Representatives) the European ambassadors have given the green light to the fifth package of sanctions against 17 people and 11 entities linked to the Minsk regime.

According to diplomatic sources in Brussels, the registration on the EU 'black list' provides for the freezing of assets and the ban on travel to the EU. The new provision will be published tomorrow, after formal adoption, in the European Official Journal.  

Yesterday in a NATO meeting Stoltenberg and Blinken promised a "strong response" on the crisis at the border, once again accusing Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of using "vulnerable" migrants to destabilize Europe with "hybrid tactics", even if the tension it appeared to be in decline after some of them, mostly Iraqi Kurds, on arriving at the Polish border, accepted repatriation.  

President Andrzej Duda ratified a bill that imposes a ban on access to the border area for both NGOs and their humanitarian workers and journalists. To enter the area it will be necessary to obtain a permit from the Border Guard who can grant it "at its discretion". The law, reports the local press, came into force at the end of the border state emergency that Warsaw had introduced on 2 September following an increase in migrants from Belarus. Although, according to the same law, a state of emergency can only be declared for a maximum period of three months. Access to the border area, therefore, is currently prohibited for non-residents.Journalists who were previously banned will now be able to apply for special permission from border guards.

Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski justified the measure with "security reasons". Compared to the area designated by the state of emergency, the new provision includes 183 villages, and is three kilometers deep. Only yesterday, according to the police, 134 attempts of irregular access were recorded. Then there is Article 4 of the Alliance according to which the decision to initiate emergency consultations can be suspended if a country considers that its territorial integrity, political independence or security is threatened. 

After the announcement, Poland's human rights guarantor challenged the law, arguing that it prohibits the right to information exercised by the media and more generally the constitutionally recognized freedom of movement, allowing the Ministry of Interior to limitations indefinitely. All this while non-governmental organizations raise the alarm about the humanitarian crisis, since the refugees have remained mostly camped outdoors and these days the snow complicates things. According to Warsaw, more than 5,000 migrants from Belarus have arrived at the border since November and accusations have returned in Minsk of having intentionally facilitated the granting of visas from the Middle East with the aim of putting pressure on the European Union.

, another major player in the area, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine will not be able to stop the war in Donbass without direct talks with Russia and asks for NATO's help to contain the Russian threat with strong political signals, including military support.

"If we act in a coordinated way we will be able to deterrence Putin and demotivate him from choosing the worst case scenario, which is the military operation," Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a speech at the meeting of foreign ministers. of NATO in Riga. Kuleba had denounced the displacement of 115 thousand Russian soldiers at the border.