Belarus’s threat to cut off gas supplies to Europe would be a breach of the agreement with Russia, President Vladimir Putin warned.
Lukashenko is threatening to adopt new sanctions over the growing migrant crisis on the country’s western border with Poland.
EU officials accuse Belarus of provoking a crisis to undermine the security of the bloc, which it denies.
Thousands of people, mainly from Iraq, Syria and Yemen, are on the border with Poland, passing the island in the hope of entering the EU.
Saturday. On November 13, Poland accused Belarusian soldiers of trying to break through a fence to allow migrants to pass.
Earlier, Polish police also said that a corpse of a young Syrian had been found in a forest near the border in the same area. At least eight migrants have been found dead on the Polish side in recent months, and an unknown number on the Belarusian side.
Poland has been accused of pushing people back across the Belarusian border in violation of international asylum rules.
Migrants are mainly young men, but there are also women and children. They settle in tents right inside Belarus, trapped between Polish guards on one side and Belarusian guards on the other.
The Belarussian authorities say they supply them with food and heating.-
“We have nowhere to sit, it’s too cold,” one of the migrants told Steve Rosenberg, a BBC worker.
Belarus is already subject to EU sanctions following Lukashenko’s controversial re-election last year, which was followed by violent repression of the opposition. About a third of Europe’s gas supplies come from Russia, some through a Russian-owned pipeline through Belarus.
Putin told Rossiya on Saturday that he had spoken twice with his Belarusian counterpart about threatening to cut off gas supplies. “Of course, in theory, Lukashenko, as president of a transit country, could order an interruption in our supplies to Europe. However, that would mean terminating our gas transit agreement, and I hope that will not happen. There is nothing good about this, and I will, of course, talk to him about it. Maybe he said it in anger, “he said.
On Thursday, the threat from Belarus arose in connection with the threat of new EU sanctions, which could be imposed on Monday, November 15. Possible measures include deterring international airlines transporting migrants from landing at Minsk Airport, the capital of Belarus.
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