Bild: Putin and Erdogan help Lukashenka to transport migrants from the Middle East to the EU
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan help to the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko with the delivery of migrants from the Middle East to the borders of the countries of the European Union. The politicians were accused of this by the German newspaper Bild, citing high-ranking officials of the German security agencies.
According to the interlocutors of the publication, Lukashenka deliberately brings migrants to Belarus in order to then transport them to neighboring Lithuania and Poland. According to Bild, migrants are often forced to cross the EU border at gunpoint.
At the same time, earlier Putin noted that Russia cannot interfere in the affairs of other countries, including the migration crisis on the border of Belarus and the EU, TASS reported. According to him, this problem is a sovereign affair of Belarus and its neighbors, and “Russia has nothing to do with it.” In turn, Lukashenko thanked the Russian leader for refusing to put pressure on Minsk and intervene in the current situation.
At the same time, according to Bild, Moscow and Ankara allegedly provide logistical support to the Belarusian leader. The main role in this process is played by Russian and Turkish airlines with state participation, which use their planes to ferry migrants to Minsk. As the newspaper notes, this information was confirmed to him at once by several employees of the security agencies of Berlin, as well as the head of the federal police union Heiko Teggats. The latter, in turn, noted that, despite the obviousness of this state of affairs, it will be very difficult to impose sanctions on Russian and Turkish air carriers, since they are important for the entire European air traffic.
The Belarusian airline Belavia also actively participates in the transfer of migrants to Europe, Bild notes. So, at present, the schedule of the Minsk airport includes 57 flights a week to the Middle East. In particular, among the destinations there are Syrian Damascus, the flight to which is operated by the airline Cham Wing owned by the cousin of President Bashar al-Assad, the city of Erbil in northern Iraq and Ras Al Khaimah, the capital of the emirate of the same name, which is considered the poorest in the UAE.
At the same time, the newspaper writes, these flights are apparently not intended for ordinary passengers, since it is impossible to book tickets for them on the airlines' websites.
Earlier in November, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Germany Horst Seehofer called for measures to solve the migration problem. According to him, Germany and Poland are not able to cope with the current situation on their own.
Prior to that, it became known that the Border Guard of Poland from November 9, will close the Kuznica checkpoint across the border with Belarus due to the migration situation after how on November 8 a group of migrants from the Middle East gathered at the Belarusian-Polish border. The Polish government has estimated their number at 3-4 thousand.
The migration crisis on the border of Belarus and the EU countries began after the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko threatened to weaken control over the flow of refugees and drug trafficking. This happened against the backdrop of yet another aggravation of relations between Minsk and the West.