(Kiev) Ukraine on Thursday announced its intention to deploy thousands of border guards and police on its border with Belarus, accusing Brussels of planning Minsk amid the migration crisis on the Belarus-Poland border.
More than 2,000 migrants, including Kurds from the Near East, are stranded for days in a makeshift camp on the border between Poland and Belarus, where they burn firewood to warm themselves up to 0 ° C.
This situation has caused growing concern in the international community, and the UN.
Ukraine, which shares a border with Belarus in the north and Poland in the west, is trying to avoid a similar situation on its border, despite significant infiltration of more than 200 km from the former republic.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Dionysius announced on Thursday that the Ukrainian army will deploy 8,500 additional troops, including 3,000 border guards, 3,500 national guards and 2,000 police officers on the Ukraine-Belarus border.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zhelensky said in a telephone interview with his Lithuanian envoy Gitanas Nauseda that he would “adequately respond” to any developments on the border if Ukrainian border guards on Thursday promised “no threat” from Belarus.
For weeks, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has been accused by Europeans of triggering the crisis by issuing visas to immigrants and bringing them across the border in retaliation for European sanctions.
Belarus, for its part, threatened on Thursday that it would respond to possible new European sanctions by Brussels, closing the gates of a large gas pipeline that runs through its border.
