Polish PM accuses Putin of using migrants as ‘human shields’

The accusation came as thousands of desperate migrants were trapped in freezing weather on the Belarus-Poland border.

A Kurdish family stuck at the border on Tuesday. Picture: AFP

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of orchestrating a wave of ­migrants trying to illegally enter Poland from Belarus, saying the “attack” threatens to destabilise the EU.

The accusation came as thousands of desperate migrants were trapped in freezing weather on the Belarus-Poland border, where the presence of troops from both sides has raised fears of a confrontation.

Western critics have for months said Belarus’s strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko is luring migrants from the Middle East to his country and then sending them across the border in ­retaliation for EU sanctions.

“This attack which Lukashenko is conducting has its mastermind in Moscow, the mastermind is President Putin,” Mr Morawiecki told parliament. He said ­migrants were being used as “human shields to destabilise the situation in Poland and the EU”.

Germany, which accused Mr Lukashenko of “unscrupulously” exploiting migrants by sending them to the Polish border, called on Wednesday for new EU sanctions against Belarus.

“Lukashenko must realise that his calculations are not working,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said. “The European Union cannot be blackmailed.”

EU diplomats said the bloc was working to expand sanctions. The EU said it was also pushing more than a dozen countries, mainly in the Middle East and ­Africa, to prevent their nationals from leaving for Belarus.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel late on Wednesday phoned Mr Putin to ask him to get Belarus to stop the “inhumane” treatment of migrants.

The EU accuses Mr Lukashenko of trying to destabilise the EU by encouraging migrants to its borders – especially Poland and Lithuania – in retaliation for sanctions imposed on Belarus over his regime’s dismal human rights record.

Belarus denies the claims and accuses Poland of violating human rights by refusing to allow the migrants in. “We are not seeking a fight,” Mr Lukashenko told the state news agency Belta.

“I am not a madman, I understand perfectly well where it can lead. But we will not kneel.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov blamed Western military “adventures” in the Middle East for prompting migrants to flee the region. “Why, when it comes to refugees heading to the European Union from Turkey, did the EU provide funding to keep them on Turkish territory?” he said. “Why can’t the Belarusians be helped in the same way?”

The crisis came to a head on Monday when hundreds of migrants attempted to cross the border but were blocked by rows of Polish police, soldiers and border guards behind barbed wire.

Poland and Belarus said no Tuesday that between 3000 and 4000 migrants were now in an improvised camp at the border, near the Polish village of Kuznica.

AFP