Russia and Belarus flexed their military might for a third time this week near the Poland-Belarus border, where thousands of people are stranded in deplorable conditions, trapped at the center of an intensifying humanitarian and geopolitical crisis.
On Friday, Russia and Belarus held joint paratrooper drills near Poland, exercises the Belarusian defense ministry said were “in connection with the buildup of military activity near the state border of the Republic of Belarus.”
Some 15,000 Polish soldiers have been deployed to Poland’s border with Belarus in recent days in reaction to a tense standoff that the European Union, the United States and NATO say is of Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko’s making.
Western leaders, including prime ministers of neighboring Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, are accusing the Lukashenko regime of manufacturing a migrant crisis on the EU’s eastern frontier as retribution for sanctions over human rights abuses.
Lukashenko’s government has repeatedly denied such claims, instead blaming the West for the crossings and treatment of migrants.
Trapped in the crossfire are upwards of 2,000 people stuck between Poland and Belarus who are now facing conditions the United Nations has called “catastrophic,” with desperate scenes of hunger and hypothermia playing out in freezing forests and at makeshift camps at the border.
Russia, Belarus’ largest (and most important) political and economic partner, continues to defend Minsk’s handling of the border crisis while also denying any involvement in it.
Read more about the crisis here:
Source: www.cnn.com