Lithuania declares state of emergency over migrants from Belarus

[Shodan14]

Some news from a bit further away than usual, but quite worrying still. (Via Politico):

Lithuania declared a state of emergency on Friday after 150 illegal migrants crossed into the country from neighboring Belarus.

The Lithuanian government has accused Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko of trying to destabilize the country in retaliation for its support of EU sanctions and for the Belarusian opposition movement, which has been protesting since a fraudulent presidential election last August.

Some of the migrants were reported to be Syrian citizens who entered Belarus legally because of family connections or dual nationality. But many such migrants would prefer to live in the EU, particularly with Belarus facing a barrage of economic sanctions by the EU, Canada, U.K. and U.S. over the continuing political crisis.

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Here's some more detailed background for those interested.

"It is obvious that a hybrid war is being waged against Lithuania, and illegal migration flows are one of the means," Interior Minister Agne Bilotaite said on June 7.

Lithuania said Belarusian border guards have been covering the tracks of the migrants, with Bilotaite contending this "shows that officials themselves might be cooperating." She said the Interior Ministry has consulted with Lithuania's armed forces on how to tackle the migration situation.

Lukashenka vowed to unleash "migrants and drugs" amid fresh outrage and demands for more penalties and sanctions after his government forced a Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius to divert to Minsk on May 23, citing what is widely believed to have been a bogus bomb threat, and arrested Belarusian blogger and journalist Raman Pratasevich and his girlfriend, Russian citizen Sofia Sapega.

While flights in and out of Minsk International Airport are down, there have been more planes from Baghdad arriving in Minsk in recent weeks.

Travelers from Iraq were reported to be taken to several hotels throughout Minsk on June 16, according to the popular Telegram channel Motolko Pomogi.

Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas has compared the current situation in his country to 2015-16, when suspicions arose that Russia was directing refugees from Central Asia to Finland and Norway by the so-called "Arctic road."

"We saw a similar scenario in Finland and Norway in 2015-2016 when Russia attempted to destabilize the EU. Belarus is repeating it. The method and principles are the same," he said.

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[Shodan14]

Looks like the situation is only worsening.

Lithuania has seen a major influx of undocumented migrants crossing in from Belarus, with some 1,200 people detained over the past several months, including 134 on Sunday. This stands in sharp contrast to 81 irregular migrants detained in 2020, 46 in 2019, and 104 in 2018.

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[yogurt]

So Lithuania is alleging that Belarus is shuttling migrants across their border?
Additionally, I'm guessing Lithuania is xenophobic and anti-migrant?

 

[spineduke]

Additionally, I'm guessing Lithuania is xenophobic and anti-migrant?

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Seriously, a non-story. 1200 people over the course of many months is nothing. The anti-immigrant narrative is just rising in Europe.

 

[Shodan14]

So Lithuania is alleging that Belarus is shuttling migrants across their border?

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Yes.

Seriously, a non-story. 1200 people over the course of many months is nothing. The anti-immigrant narrative is just rising in Europe.

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I think the story is that it's an increase of 1400% over the previous years and that is almost all over the past 2 months. Also Lithuania has a population of 2.8 million.

 

[Quinton]

It's definitely a story worth posting imo. More eyes ought be on this.

 

[mf.luder]

First off, I'm glad that Lithuania finally gets some attention on here, even if it is not great news.

Secondly, it is a concern because they are not equipped to handle this amount of migrants (legitimate or not).

The situation with Belarus has essentially made this worse as their border control seems to be missing in action, therefore encouraging this by complacency.

 

[KastuśKalinoŭski]

Seriously, a non-story. 1200 people over the course of many months is nothing. The anti-immigrant narrative is just rising in Europe.

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You don't get the issue. Lukashenko uses them to keep pressure on EU.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/belarus-lukashenko-sanctions-euope/2021/07/01/2b76f28e-d8d5-11eb-8c87-ad6f27918c78_story.html

Four flights a week arrive in Minsk from Iraq.

Abramavicius asserted that Belarus is "inviting" the Iraqis for tourism and issuing tourist visas, sometimes at the airport. From there, organized transport in trucks and buses takes them to the border, less than 95 miles away, he said, based on information given by migrants to Lithuanian officials processing their asylum requests.

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[L176]

So Lithuania is alleging that Belarus is shuttling migrants across their border?
Additionally, I'm guessing Lithuania is xenophobic and anti-migrant?

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It's not black and white. Sure, there is xenophobia in Lithuania and Europe in general. Also, I think these people should have been allowed into EU in the first place if it was their destination. Still, Lithuania is a small country with its own economic and political problems and this is a clear tactic by the Belarussian government to fuck with Lithuania which has been in the forefront of the action against Lukashenko as they pretty much house the opposition government. This is a tactic also used by Russia.

They most likely did this to Finland in the winter of 2015-16, at the heat of the last refugee crisis. We received almost 2000 asylum seekers in 3 months that were pretty much driven to the border. While this was a number our country could handle (we had taken in 30k in 2015 from the Sweden) it was still a clear pressuring tactic from the Russian government.

Edit: Seems Lithuania has given it's answer to the pressure today.

https://twitter.com/LithuaniaMFA/status/1411982359528943617?s=20

 

[mf.luder]

You don't get the issue. Lukashenko uses them to keep pressure on EU.

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Exactly. The spike is retaliatory. Visa-free for 5 days! Oh my. And then they wash their hands and say they don't know anything. Kurva blet.

Tomorrow is Lithuania's Statehood Day FYI.

 

[Syriel]

Yes.

I think the story is that it's an increase of 1400% over the previous years and that is almost all over the past 2 months. Also Lithuania has a population of 2.8 million.

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To put that in perspective the population of Lithuania is approximately 3/4 of Los Angeles, roughly equal to the population of Chicago, or a little less than 1/3 the size of London.

 

[spineduke]

You don't get the issue. Lukashenko uses them to keep pressure on EU.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/belarus-lukashenko-sanctions-euope/2021/07/01/2b76f28e-d8d5-11eb-8c87-ad6f27918c78_story.html

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Oh I do very much get the issue. I'm pointing out the numbers are insignificant in the bigger picture. Even with the recent increases, the refugees (who by the way, are real people in need escaping their circumstances) constitute LESS than 0.1% of the population.

 

[Evolution of Metal]

Oh I do very much get the issue. I'm pointing out the numbers are insignificant in the bigger picture. Even with the recent increases, the refugees (who by the way, are real people in need escaping their circumstances) constitute LESS than 0.1% of the population.

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Insignificant to what?

Like... Don't worry, it is just up to 5000/month of undocumented or misled migrants being sent by Belarus.

And we go by population and percentages, the current flow would be the equivalent of 500k/month for US. Do you want to grant them all a refugee status?
Is this an insignificant number for US, who accepted less than 12k refugees in 2020?

 

[Shodan14]

Oh I do very much get the issue. I'm pointing out the numbers are insignificant in the bigger picture. Even with the recent increases, the refugees (who by the way, are real people in need escaping their circumstances) constitute LESS than 0.1% of the population.

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The problem is housing, feeding and providing healthcare etc. for them as well as processing them. The vast majority won't want to stay in Lithuania anyway.

The bigger issue here is a state using migrants from a third country as a hybrid warfare tactic against another state. As mentioned previously, this isn't the first time either, Russia did this to Finland back in 2015-16.

 

[spineduke]

Insignificant to what?

Like... Don't worry, it is just up to 5000/month of undocumented or misled migrants being sent by Belarus.

And we go by population and percentages, the current flow would be the equivalent of 500k/month for US. Do you want to grant them all a refugee status?
Is this an insignificant number for US, who accepted less than 12k refugees in 2020?

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Really? We're using the US as a metric now? And yes, I do think they should all be granted refugee status provided their cases meet the criteria. These quotas are arbitrary and have been there to placate the xenophobia. Your comparison to summon images of a horde of 500,000 illegal immigrants, which are not here, nor in America, except in your hypotheticals has been noted.

 

[spineduke]

The problem is housing, feeding and providing healthcare etc. for them as well as processing them. The vast majority won't want to stay in Lithuania anyway.

The bigger issue here is a state using migrants from a third country as a hybrid warfare tactic against another state. As mentioned previously, this isn't the first time either, Russia did this to Finland back in 2015-16.

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Yes, I understand. They're being weaponized and this should be addressed - I just don't like to fall into anti-refugee sentiments which are tacitly implied by some here.

 

[iksenpets]

Seriously, a non-story. 1200 people over the course of many months is nothing. The anti-immigrant narrative is just rising in Europe.

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I mean, Lithuania is small, so this is the equivalent of if America were getting 100K+ migrants, so it's not nothing, but it's also not any sort of crisis level. The framing had me worried that this was some little green men situation with Belarus sending actual agents into the country. But this is just diplomatic trolling where it seems like the best response is just we're a stable and prosperous democracy, of course we can take care of a few thousand migrants. How many migrants does Belarus even have? Even if they're sincere in their threat to send 5000, there's no way they could keep that pace up long before they're just out of Syrians.

 

[Shodan14]

Yes, I understand. They're being weaponized and this should be addressed - I just don't like to fall into anti-refugee sentiments which are tacitly implied by some here.

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I think that's what we should focus on, so far Lithuania is very much fulfilling its obligations under the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

The other bit is that the numbers have been increasing with no reason to think Belarus would stop any time soon.

I mean, Lithuania is small, so this is the equivalent of if America were getting 100K+ migrants, so it's not nothing, but it's also not any sort of crisis level. The framing had me worried that this was some little green men situation with Belarus sending actual agents into the country. But this is just diplomatic trolling where it seems like the best response is just we're a stable and prosperous democracy, of course we can take care of a few thousand migrants. How many migrants does Belarus even have? Even if they're sincere in their threat to send 5000, there's no way they could keep that pace up long before they're just out of Syrians.

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If you read above, they're actively finding people to fly in from Turkey and Iraq, it's not just some random refugees in Belarus.

 

[Evolution of Metal]

Really? We're using the US as a metric now? And yes, I do think they should all be granted refugee status provided their cases meet the criteria. These quotas are arbitrary and have been there to placate the xenophobia. Your comparison to summon images of a horde of 500,000 illegal immigrants, which are not here, nor in America, except in your hypotheticals has been noted.

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Yes, we are using the most popular country on ERA to illustrate how the % of immigrants entering Lithuania would translate to US. That is how a comparison works...

You said insignificant, and I called you on this. It is not an insignificant amount, it is the increasing amount that needs, first of all, a plan. Neither Lithuania, nor EU has a plan on what to do when immigrants are being used as an economic warfare. It is a 600km+ border that protects not only Lithuania, but Schengen. The numbers are increasing daily and it is also happening during the rise of delta strain.

I think you don't understand the situation and believe the crux is the anti-immigration, and if people were less anti-immigrant, the problem would just go away.

 

[mf.luder]

Really? We're using the US as a metric now? And yes, I do think they should all be granted refugee status provided their cases meet the criteria. These quotas are arbitrary and have been there to placate the xenophobia. Your comparison to summon images of a horde of 500,000 illegal immigrants, which are not here, nor in America, except in your hypotheticals has been noted.

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but how does Belarus fit into this scenario? Lukashenko is offering cheap flights to Minsk and then shuttling people to the border of LT/into EU? You don't find this suspicious?

why can't you look at the data and see that this increase is real? Don't you think the border control has a finite budget/personnel to effectively handle this situation?
And what are you comparing this to to consider it "insignificant"?

 

[spineduke]

Yes, we are using the most popular country on ERA to illustrate how the % of immigrants entering Lithuania would translate to US. That is how a comparison works...

You said insignificant, and I called you on this. It is not an insignificant amount, it is the increasing amount that needs, first of all, a plan. Neither Lithuania, nor EU has a plan on what to do when immigrants are being used as an economic warfare. It is a 600km+ border that protects not only Lithuania, but Schengen. The numbers are increasing daily and it is also happening during the rise of delta strain.

I think you don't understand the situation and believe the crux is the anti-immigration, and if people were less anti-immigrant, the problem would just go away.

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I made my case quite grounded, you on the other hand, had to resort to whatboutism and extrapolate hypothetical values to illustrate an alarmist narrative where there is none. The case of weaponizing refugees will still be there to deal with - but without the idea that Lithuania is overwhelmed or underequipped to deal with the numbers at hand. This is the same narrative that is used to fuel right wing talking points and xenophobia.

but how does Belarus fit into this scenario? Lukashenko is offering cheap flights to Minsk and then shuttling people to the border of LT/into EU? You don't find this suspicious?

why can't you look at the data and see that this increase is real? Don't you think the border control has a finite budget/personnel to effectively handle this situation?
And what are you comparing this to to consider it "insignificant"?

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I've already acknowledged that these refugees are being weaponized by Belarus, and that the refugees are increasing relative to the past. That doesn't invalidate that these are actual people in need. As for insignifcant, I say on two accounts - within the context of Lithuania's population its under a fraction of a single percent of the population of Lithuania, and we have dozens of poorer countries that have hosted far, far greater refugee populations with relation to their own native populations.

 

[GYODX]

The problem is housing, feeding and providing healthcare etc. for them as well as processing them. The vast majority won't want to stay in Lithuania anyway.

The bigger issue here is a state using migrants from a third country as a hybrid warfare tactic against another state. As mentioned previously, this isn't the first time either, Russia did this to Finland back in 2015-16.

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That's exactly it.

You can trace a direct line from Trump and the rise of other rightwing authoritarians in Europe and world-wide to the 2011-2013 refugee crisis. It is a massively destabilizing pressure point, and the authoritarians in charge of these countries understand it perfectly well.

We can preach humanitarianism all we want (and we should; it's the only acceptable response), but it won't stop rightwing chuds in our own countries from capitalizing on these things and using them to fuel their xenophobic agendas. Again, like we've seen this past decade.

 

[Evolution of Metal]

I made my case quite grounded, you on the other hand, had to resort to whatboutism and extrapolate hypothetical values to illustrate an alarmist narrative where there is none. The case of weaponizing refugees will still be there to deal with - but without the idea that Lithuania is overwhelmed or underequipped to deal with the numbers at hand. This is the same narrative that is used to fuel right wing talking points and xenophobia.

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The border units are overwhelmed and underequipped to deal with the crossings. You are posting in the thread:
Lithuania declares state of emergency over migrants from Belarus

Lithuania has literally sounded the alarm, and you are arguing that I shouldn't post "alarmist narrative"

 

[spineduke]

The border units are overwhelmed and underequipped to deal with the crossings. You are posting in the thread:
Lithuania declares state of emergency over migrants from Belarus

Lithuania has literally sounded the alarm, and you are arguing that I shouldn't post "alarmist narrative"

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You going for the bingo now? I can read just fine, no need to post in upsized fonts as if I'm sort of imbecile. I know what Lithuania alerted themselves to, do you know what an alarmist narrative is?

Edit: You know what, don't bother. You're just ignoring my statements selectively and not even engaging with me on acknowledging terms. Just argumentative fallacy after fallacy. Not gonna bother with you.

 

[mf.luder]

From Tadeusz Twitter account (same one as above)

"Well, it didn't take long. The Lukashenko regime has started to smuggle migrants to Poland too. The first group of 40 Afghan nationals have been detained today by Polish border guards at the Belarusian-Polish border and placed in a refugee centre."

very interesting scenario just became more complex.

 

[Ephonk]

Yes, I understand. They're being weaponized and this should be addressed - I just don't like to fall into anti-refugee sentiments which are tacitly implied by some here.

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What you don't seem to get, is that by doing this anti-refugee sentiments will only rise, thus it doesn't help those people in need either.
It is ok to not be anti refugees and also acknowledge that this is a serious problem/possible crisis situation for Lithuania and negative for rightwing parties both in Lithuania and Western Europa in general to score upon.

 

[carlosrso]

Seriously, all of that for 150 migrants? Quite xenophobic...
Imagine if Lithuania was in South America with its 5 million Venezuelans which had to flee from Maduro's regime to the neighbour countries?

 

[spineduke]

Seriously, all of that for 150 migrants? Quite xenophobic...
Imagine if Lithuania was in South America with its 5 million Venezuelans which had to flee from Maduro's regime to the neighbour countries?

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The pearl clutching over the number of refugees is just too much. More talk about Luhashenko and Belarus, less about the "massive" hordes that the media is piping it up to be. It's a farce.

 

[deflektor]

Unfortunately that's not surprising at all... Erdogan already showed to the world that it's a VERY effective method of pressure by doing the same to Greece and by extent to the EU

 

[SpaceBridge]

Is there any chance that Russia is using this to destabilize Lithuania (and the Baltic's) to justify a future incursion to "protect Belarus nationals"? Similar to Ukraine?

I was under the impression that Belarus is essentially part of the Russian Federation all in but name.

 

[Reckheim]

Is there any chance that Russia is using this to destabilize Lithuania (and the Baltic's) to justify a future incursion to "protect Belarus nationals"? Similar to Ukraine?

I was under the impression that Belarus is essentially part of the Russian Federation all in but name.

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Lithuania is part of the EU, Russia wont be doing any incursions there; unless of course they want to start a war with the rest of Europe.

 

[Shodan14]

Is there any chance that Russia is using this to destabilize Lithuania (and the Baltic's) to justify a future incursion to "protect Belarus nationals"? Similar to Ukraine?

I was under the impression that Belarus is essentially part of the Russian Federation all in but name.

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No, the vast majority of the migrants are from the Middle East. Please read the OP.

 

[SpaceBridge]

No, the vast majority of the migrants are from the Middle East. Please read the OP.

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I did, and I saw that Syrian migrants were identified. Still, I was curious, as it's in Russia's playbook to infiltrate counties with agents to cause some chaos going as far back as old plans for West Germany in the '80's.

Disregard my question then as admittedly I'm not to well versed on the geopolitics of contemporary eastern/Baltic Europe.

 

[Shodan14]

I did, and I saw that Syrian migrants were identified. Still, I was curious, as it's in Russia's playbook to infiltrate counties with agents to cause some chaos going as far back as old plans for West Germany in the '80's.

Disregard my question then as admittedly I'm not to well versed on the geopolitics of contemporary eastern/Baltic Europe.

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No worries. Russia (and Belarus, their security services are very close indeed) is good at expanding its hybrid warfare playbook. So far this seems mostly like a very cost-effective way to pressure countries with little accountability (or response).

 

[KastuśKalinoŭski]

Lithuania to build wall along Belarus border – DW – 07/07/2021

The move comes as Minsk enables a huge influx of illegal migration into the EU. Lithuania says Belarus is seeking to harm the European bloc in response to sanctions.

www.dw.com

Though, if they really want to stop Lukashenko doing this, the most effective way would be closing port of Klaipeda for Belaruskali, so they won't be able to export potash. Right now regime is making a lot of money on that:

Most Belarus potash exports not affected by EU sanctions - analysts

The European Union's ban on imports and transit of potash from Belarus will not affect most exports of the crop nutrient from the world's top producer, provided the restriction stays in its current form, potash transporters and analysts said.

www.reuters.com

 

[el jacko]

1,200 migrants, even for a tiny country, doesn't sound like a crisis-level number, but the fact that the Belarus govt is cynically taking advantage of the situation in the middle east - and the anti-immigration fervor in the EU - to troll EU leaders is terrible (and, I have to admit, a terribly perfect troll effort)

The ideal response to me seems to be that the EU has to bribe the Iraqi and Syrian govts to shut down flights to Belarus. But I'm not a foreign policy guy, at all.

 

[mf.luder]

LTU is increasing border security. https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-engli...n-border-with-belarus-this-week-says-minister

 

[BringBackSonics]

I mean, Lithuania is small, so this is the equivalent of if America were getting 100K+ migrants, so it's not nothing, but it's also not any sort of crisis level. The framing had me worried that this was some little green men situation with Belarus sending actual agents into the country. But this is just diplomatic trolling where it seems like the best response is just we're a stable and prosperous democracy, of course we can take care of a few thousand migrants. How many migrants does Belarus even have? Even if they're sincere in their threat to send 5000, there's no way they could keep that pace up long before they're just out of Syrians.

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diplomatic trolling? This is more than that.

 

[mf.luder]

Protests at the border by the same people who paraded around recently about being "traditional family values". Not a good look and definitely shows the one side of the narrative.

Seems that some of the rallies are in Druskininkiai, a popular resort town in the southern part of Lithuania.

 

[spineduke]

Protests at the border by the same people who paraded around recently about being "traditional family values". Not a good look and definitely shows the one side of the narrative.

Seems that some of the rallies are in Druskininkiai, a popular resort town in the southern part of Lithuania.

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Any idea what this horse emblem is?

 

[mf.luder]

Any idea what this horse emblem is?

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It's Vytis, from the Lithuanian coat of arms.

edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Lithuania

 

[Moksha]

Maybe someone can clear this up for me. How does the position of these protestors differ to that of the lithuanian government, if at all? It seems to me that neither party wants these migrants in the country?

Are the protestors simply xenophobes, whereas the government sees this strictly as an issue with Belarus that has come about because of the support of their pro-democracy opposition in the country.

Apologies if I seem uneducated on the topic, but I'm trying to get a grasp of it and there is not a lot of English language reporting on it.

 

[mf.luder]

Well, I don't know if the government has stated "that they don't want these migrants in the country". People can certainly twist the message and interpret how they want. The government, to me, is saying that these numbers are unprecedented and we cannot adequately do our job of border control.

Total so far in 2021 - 1600+ migrants crossing via Belarus, vs the numbers shown below
2020 - 81 total
2019 - 46 total
2018 - 104 total

Unless people dismiss the logistics of processing people (facilities, space, personnel, etc) I don't know how they can look at these numbers and say there is no cause for concern. Doesn't border control have a budget? Don't the employees have a work schedule? Is there a limit to how many migrants that a border guard can process/oversee at once? Add to the fact that Belarus has all but admitted that they are encouraging individuals to travel to Minsk and cross into the EU at Lithuania.

And to me, the protesters are the typical right wing conservative type that are anti anything that's different than themselves.

Immigration is good and needed but I really think that this scenario isn't anti-immigrant.

 

[mf.luder]

The number is now over 4000 irregular migrants according to an LRT article today.

NATO helicopters claim to have video footage of Belarus military assisting migrants. https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-engli...proof-of-belarusian-guards-directing-migrants

 

[BringBackSonics]

The number is now over 4000 irregular migrants according to an LRT article today.

NATO helicopters claim to have video footage of Belarus military assisting migrants. https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-engli...proof-of-belarusian-guards-directing-migrants

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Destabilize your neighbors. I'm sure Putin's hands are involved in this.

 

[KastuśKalinoŭski]

 

[orochi91]

Lithuania is part of the EU, no?

What's their overall gameplan in dealing with Belarus and the migrants?

 

[KastuśKalinoŭski]

Lithuania is part of the EU, no?

What's their overall gameplan in dealing with Belarus and the migrants?

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EU will decide on August 18 what to do:

EU crisis meeting to discuss surge of migrants from Belarus to Lithuania

European Union home affairs ministers will discuss a surge of illegal border crossings from Belarus to EU member state Lithuania at an extraordinary meeting on Aug. 18, the Slovenian EU presidency said on Friday.

www.reuters.com

 

[KastuśKalinoŭski]

 

[spineduke]

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heartbreaking :(