SOKOLKA, Poland: Polish forces fired tear gas and deployed water cannons against stone-throwing migrants trying to cross the Belarusian border on Tuesday, sparking accusations from Belarus that Poland was trying to escalate the crisis.
Polish border guards estimate up to 4,000 migrants are currently camped out along the border between Poland and Belarus in increasingly dire conditions and freezing temperatures.
Western powers accuse Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko of orchestrating the crisis, possibly with the backing of Russia, by luring migrants to the border to sow division in the EU — claims denied by Minsk and Moscow.
A standoff near the Bruzgi-Kuznica border crossing on the EU’s eastern frontier began last week when hundreds of migrants gathered there.
“Migrants attacked our soldiers and officers with rocks and are trying to destroy the fence and cross into Poland,” Poland’s defense ministry said on Tuesday, tweeting a video showing apparent clashes at the border.
“Our forces used tear gas to quell the migrants’ aggression.”
A police officer, a border guard and a soldier were injured in the clashes, Polish officials said, with police saying stun grenades and tear gas canisters had also been thrown at officers.
Belarusian foreign ministry spokesman Anataoly Glaz accused Poland of exacerbating the problem.
“The goal of the Polish side is completely understandable — it needs to escalate the situation even more, to stifle any progress in resolving the situation,” he said.
“We see today from the Polish side direct provocations and inhumane treatment of the disadvantaged,” he said.
Russia also condemned Poland’s use of tear gas and water cannons against the migrants, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov calling it “absolutely unacceptable.”
Lukashenko, who has crushed opposition to his rule over nearly three decades in power, said on Tuesday that he wanted to avoid a “heated confrontation” at the border.
“The main thing now is to protect our country and our people, and not to allow clashes,” he told a government meeting, according to state news agency Belta.
The Belarusian leader discussed the crisis with Germany’s Angela Merkel on Monday, his first phone call with a Western leader since he suppressed mass protests against his rule last year.
Merkel’s office said the pair discussed bringing humanitarian aid to the migrants, whose number includes many young children.
Lukashenko said he and Merkel agreed the standoff should be defused.
“We were of the united opinion that nobody needs escalation — not the EU, or Belarus,” he said.
But he said he had “differing” views with Merkel on how the migrants got to Belarus, with the West saying Minsk had brought them there as revenge for sanctions.
EU foreign ministers on Monday agreed that existing sanctions targeting Lukashenko’s regime will be expanded to include individuals or companies found to have encouraged border crossings.
The US has also vowed to expand its sanctions on Belarus.
Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who lives in exile in Lithuania, welcomed the sanctions saying Lukashenko had “crossed all the red lines already.”
Iraq has said it will start voluntary repatriations of its citizens from Belarus this week.
The Iraqi embassy in Moscow said it would fly out around 200 people in a flight on Thursday.
But many migrants — including those AFP has spoken to — have vowed not to go back.
The EU meanwhile has been asking for the flights to Belarus to stop.
Turkish Airlines has now banned Iraqis, Syrians and Yemenis from flying to Belarus via Turkey and private Syrian carrier Cham Wings Airlines has said it will halt flights to Minsk.
Belarus’s state-run airline Belavia has also said that Syrians, Iraqis, Yemenis and Afghans are banned from incoming flights from the United Arab Emirates at Dubai’s request.
At least 11 migrants have died on both sides since the influx started in the summer, according to aid groups.
One of them, a 19-year-old Syrian man from the war-torn city of Homs, was laid to rest on Monday in a cemetery near the border belonging to Poland’s tiny ethnic Muslim community.
Polish forces fire tear gas at migrants on Belarus border
https://arab.news/4dpdx
Polish forces fire tear gas at migrants on Belarus border
- Polish border guards estimate up to 4,000 migrants are currently camped out along the border
- Western powers accuse Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko of orchestrating the crisis
Ukraine-Russia peace talks resume in Geneva with pressure on Kyiv
- Ukraine-Russia peace talks resume in Geneva with pressure on Kyiv
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticizes US pressure for Ukraine concessions
GENEVA: Negotiators from Ukraine and Russia began a second day of talks in Geneva on Wednesday, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the United States was putting undue pressure on him to bring an end to the four-year-old war in his country.
The US-mediated peace talks in Switzerland have been taking place as US President Donald Trump has twice in recent days suggested it was up to Ukraine and Zelensky to take steps to ensure the talks were successful.
In an interview with US website Axios published on Tuesday, Zelensky was quoted as saying that it was “not fair” Trump kept publicly calling on Ukraine, not Russia, to make concessions in negotiating terms for a peace plan.
Zelensky also said any plan requiring Ukraine to give up territory that Russia had not captured in the eastern Donbas region would be rejected by Ukrainians if put to a referendum.
“I hope it is just his tactics and not the decision,” Axios quoted Zelensky as saying in the interview.
Trump told reporters on Monday that “Ukraine better come to the table fast. That’s all I’m telling you.”
Talks come days before fourth anniversary of invasion
The Geneva talks resumed on Wednesday morning.
“The consultations are taking place in groups by areas within the political and military groups. We are working on clarifying the parameters and mechanics of the decisions that were discussed yesterday,” Ukraine’s lead negotiator and head of the National Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov said on social media.
The talks come just days before the fourth anniversary of Russia’s 2022 invasion of its much smaller neighbor. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, millions have fled their homes, and many Ukrainian cities, towns and villages have been devastated by the conflict.
Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians.
Russian source called talks ‘very tense’
Umerov said Tuesday’s talks had focused on “practical issues and the mechanics of possible decisions,” without providing details. Russian officials made no comments on the talks.
However, Russian news agencies quoted a source as saying that the Tuesday talks were “very tense” and lasted six hours in different bilateral and trilateral formats.
Ukrainian government bonds fell as much as 1.9 cents on the dollar in morning trade in Europe on reports of stalled progress at the talks.
Before the talks began, Umerov had played down hopes for a significant step forward in Geneva, saying the Ukrainian delegation was working “without excessive expectations.”
The Geneva meeting follows two rounds of US-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi that concluded without a major breakthrough as the two sides remained far apart on key issues such as the control of territory in eastern Ukraine.
Russia occupies about 20 percent of Ukraine’s national territory, including Crimea and parts of the eastern Donbas region seized before the 2022 full-scale invasion. Its recent airstrikes on energy infrastructure have left hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians without heating and power during a harsh winter.
Zelensky thanked Trump for his peacemaking efforts and told Axios that his conversations with the top US negotiators, envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, did not involve the same kind of pressure.
Witkoff early on Wednesday said Trump’s efforts to get Russia and Ukraine talking were yielding fruit.
“President Trump’s success in bringing both sides of this war together has brought about meaningful progress, and we are proud to work under his leadership to stop the killing in this terrible conflict,” he said on X. “Both parties agreed to update their respective leaders and continue working toward a deal.”
