Illegal migrants are Lukashenka's new weapon

The number of refugees from Russia crossing the Belarusian-Polish border has doubled.

People from the North Caucasus, first of all Chechens, make up 95% of the total number of refugees. The Polish border services cannot cope with such a large flow of people, Rzeczpospolita reports.

European media criticise Poland for lack of actions and say the number of applications for asylum in Germany exceeded 10,000 this year. A correspondent of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung visited the central railway station in Brest and saw hundreds of Chechen families waiting for the right moment to get to Poland. He says, referring to a colonel from the Belarusian border service, that 20,000 people are waiting for their chance to receive asylum in Europe.

“Some refugees go farther to Western Europe not waiting for a final decision. It violates international law. It shows that they don't look for asylum in Poland,” Agnieszka Golias, a spokesperson for the border service, says. She adds that Poland doesn't have enough staff to deal with migrants.

Agnieszka Golias said that for the last six months the border service received 3,141 applications for asylum in Poland for 9,500 people, 8,730 of whom being citizens of Russia.

According to Izabella Cooper from the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the EU, the number of refugees from Russia has doubled. There were only about 5,000 of them in 2012.

She notes that unlike the situation on the EU's southern borders, which refugees try to cross unnoticed, migrants from Russia arrive in Poland through official border checkpoints.

The Belarusian ruler threatened the West several times with tides of illegal migrants in response to criticism for human rights violations. Lukashenka said at a press conference for Western media last December that Belarusian border guards annually “catch thousands of illegal migrants and find tonnes of drugs”.

“On our borders we stop tens of thousands of people heading to Europe every year. We already reported that they had explosives, radioactive materials, drugs – everything that bring from Afghanistan. But the EU continues to criticise us. We'll stop catching them. We have no money. If Europe doesn't pay us, we won't protect the borders,” the dictator said last year.

He tries to blackmail the European Union, Belarusian opposition thinks.

“He has been blackmailing for about six months. Lukashenka wants to improve his reputation in the eyes of Europe. He said straightly that he would stop protecting borders if he felt pressure on him,” activist Franak Viachorka thinks. “These actions are aimed at changing Europe's policy towards Minsk. But the strict policy of the West towards the situation in Belarus shouldn't be changed.”

Lukashenka began his fourth presidential term in December 2010. The election was not recognised by the European Union and the United States. More than 600 people were arrested and all opposition candidates were thrown into jail after a rally in Minsk against falsifications.

There are 12 political prisoners in Belarus. The EU and the US imposed visa restrictions on Belarus's top officials, including Lukashenka and his family.