Lukashenko’s migrant warfare against the EU

When you have already forced a plane down with spurious claims of a bomb threat, just to arrest one dissident journalist, where do you go from there? For the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, a man looking to punish the European Union after it imposed sanctions on Belarus, it seems that exploiting would-be migrants and asylum seekers is the way forward.

Last week, the dictator threatened to send masses of migrants to the EU, in retaliation for the bloc’s sanctions against Belarus. ‘We will not stop anyone’, Lukashenko said, saying migrants would be on their way to a ‘warm and comfortable Europe’ soon.

His goal in particular appeared to be to hit back at neighbouring Lithuania, which has been at the forefront of European efforts to punish Belarus for its heavy-handed repression of a public uprising against the regime. On Monday, the Lithuanian foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, formally accredited the Belarusian opposition office in Vilnius.