After an extraordinary meeting of the UN Security Council on the current impasse between Minsk and the EU, European countries and the US denounced Belarus Thursday for a crisis that has detained hundreds of refugees on its border with Poland.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia has asked the EU to initiate negotiations with diplomatically isolated Belarus over the about 2,000 migrants, mostly Kurds from the Middle East, who are living in a tent camp on the Belarus-Poland border in near-freezing weather.
Poland is refusing to let the migrants cross the border, accusing Minsk of luring them to Belarus to send them across in retaliation for sanctions.
Following an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the crisis, the US and European delegations criticized "Belarus's orchestrated instrumentalization of human beings whose lives and well-being have been jeopardized for political purposes."
Minsk's goal, they added in a joint statement, is to "destabilize neighboring countries and the European Union's external border, diverting attention away from its own growing human rights violations."
The statement made no mention of Belarus ally Russia, which denied western allegations that it was coordinating with Minsk to move migrants over the EU's eastern border into Poland before the conference.
Putin also "spoke in favor of restoring contacts between EU states and Belarus to resolve this issue" in his second phone chat with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in as many days as the Kremlin claimed in a statement.
The EU has thus far refrained from direct engagement with Belarus's strongman Alexander Lukashenko, who warned on Thursday that any further sanctions would jeopardize Minsk's natural gas transit to Europe.
After a harsh assault on the opposition following a disputed presidential election last year, the union broke ties with Lukashenko and imposed sanctions.
'They are posing a threat to us.'
The EU is poised to announce further measures against Belarus for human trafficking next week due to the migrant crisis.
Lukashenko said Thursday that Minsk "must respond" if the EU takes additional steps, raising the prospect of shutting off transit through a pipeline that connects Russia to Poland and deeper into Europe.
"We are warming Europe, and they threaten us," he explained. "And what if we were to cut off natural gas supply?"
Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the Belarussian opposition leader, said Lukashenko was bluffing about cutting off gas and encouraged the EU to hold firm.
"It would be more detrimental to him, to Belarus, than to the European Union, and I can only assume he is bluffing," Tikhanovskaya, who fled Belarus last year after claiming victory, told AFP in Berlin.
"We are appreciative of European countries' principled stance that they will not communicate with an illegitimate person," she said.
'An entirely new sort of war'
Poland has stationed 15,000 troops along its border, erected a barbed-wire fence, and authorized the construction of a wall along its border with Belarus.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Thursday in an address commemorating Poland's Independence Day that his country was fighting a "new kind of war" whose "ammunition is civilians."
Migrants have been attempting to cross the border for months, but the problem peaked on Monday when hundreds of migrants made a concentrated effort and were repelled by Polish border police.
They established a camp on the border, sleeping in tents and heating themselves with wood from nearby forests, despite being barred by Polish troops behind razor-wire.
According to the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, at least ten migrants have died on the border in recent months, seven on the Polish side.
On Thursday, teams from the United Nations refugee agency, the International Organization for Migration, and the Red Cross visited the camp to assess conditions and distribute relief, including hygiene kits and diapers.
Polish authorities have prohibited journalists and charity workers from the local border area, citing emergency regulations.
Fear in a Polish village
Residents of the Polish border village of Sokolka expressed concern about the escalating tensions but expressed support for the Polish government's stern attitude.
"I'm afraid of the migrants getting through and the consequences," said Henryk Lenkiewicz, a 67-year-old pensioner walking past a town center communal noticeboard.
Poland has charged Putin with orchestrating the situation, a charge the Kremlin dismisses as "irresponsible."
Moscow and Minsk have strong economic, political, and military links. This week, Russian air force planes have been conducting patrols above Belarus, including two Tu-160 strategic bombers accompanied by Belarusian Su-30S fighter fighters Thursday.
