The Russian-language Telegram channel milinfolive published on Tuesday a picture which allegedly shows Belarusian border guards removing a barbed wire fence on the border between Belarus and Lithuania.
The photo must have been taken by a Lithuanian farmer. It is also posted on VK, the Russian variant of Facebook.
By removing the barbed wire, barriers to entry into Lithuania and the EU are removed.
In July, Lithuanian authorities began building a barbed wire fence to keep migrants away, but at the end of the month work stopped due to a lack of barbed wire, according to the news agency BNS.
According to the country’s Minister of the Interior, the plan was to have a barbed wire fence along the entire border area.
Get help from the EU
Now the Lithuanian authorities have instructed the border guards to expel migrants trying to cross the border from Belarus.
The growing number of migrants has become a major domestic and foreign policy headache for the Vilnius government, which has asked the EU for help in monitoring the border.
EU border force Frontex has sent 100 guards to Lithuania to strengthen border controls.
The Ministry of the Interior has spread a video taken from the border area from a Frontex helicopter.
The video is from Šalčininkai municipality, located 50 kilometers south of the capital Vilnius, and borders Belarus to the east and south.
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The ministry says the film clips prove that large groups of migrants were escorted to the EU border by vehicles belonging to the Belarusian border guard.
Lithuanian officials estimate that at least another 10,000 migrants will try to cross the border this year.
On Wednesday night, the Lithuanian news agency BNS and Delphi that Iraq should suspend flights to Minsk for ten days.
EU Ambassador Martin Huth says that this is an attempt to block the illegal migration route to Lithuania.
Want NATO meeting
Estonia’s former defense chief Riha Terras, who is a member of Estonia’s national assembly, says according to ERR News that Lithuania must request an Article 4 meeting of NATO.
In 2015, Terras received the award Commander with star by King Harald for meritorious work for the Norwegian-Estonian defense co-operation.
– Involving NATO is the only right thing to do. There is a hybrid war going on at the Lithuanian border, says Terras.
Article 4 of the Atlantic Treaty states according to Lovdata that the parties will consult with each other whenever one of them believes that any party’s territorial inviolability, political independence or security is threatened.
– CONTROVERSIAL: Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko is described as Europe’s last dictator. Photo: AP
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– Revenge action
So far this year, more than 4,000 have crossed the border, compared to 81 last year. Lithuania shares a border with Belarus that is 680 kilometers long.
In July, Lithuania declared a state of crisis, to deal with all the migrants who come and seek asylum.
Along the border, Lithuanian authorities have set up tent camps to receive asylum seekers who have come from Iran, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Iraq and Syria.
The Lithuanian authorities claim that the wave of migrants coming via Belarus is an act of revenge by the Lukashenko regime after the EU imposed tougher sanctions.
Lithuania believes that Belarus is waging a hybrid war against Lithuania. Hybrid warfare is characterized by the use of non-military means to influence the politics and social order of another country.
– Unacceptable
Lithuania’s interior minister said on Tuesday that at least three large groups of migrants had been stopped in the large forest areas that separate the two countries.
Lithuanian border guards have been ordered to send them back and, if necessary, use force, writes the news agency BNS.
– It is not inconceivable that the guards are met with aggression, says Arnoldas Abaramavicius.
On Wednesday, Lithuania denied that an Iraqi migrant had been found dead after stopping at the border. Border Patrol Chief Rustamas Liubajevas says Belarusian media are spreading false news.
– This is hybrid warfare, disinformation. There were no incidents and no use of force at the border, says a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior according to Reuters.
Norwegian authorities told TV 2 last week that they follows the situation closely.
– We take the situation very seriously and follow it closely, said State Secretary Jens Frølich Holte in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
He believes that what Belarus is doing is unacceptable.
“It is difficult to understand other than that the flow of migrants across the border is a political game, where Belarus uses vulnerable people for its own gain,” the secretary of state said.
(TV 2/NTB)
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