Belarus borders remain open despite leader’s closure threat

KYIV, Ukraine — Belarus’ borders with Poland and Lithuania remained open Friday despite the nation’s president declaring they would be closed and accusing the neighboring nations of instigating nearly six weeks of protests against his 26 years of authoritarian leadership.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said late Thursday that he was putting the army on high alert and closing the country’s borders with Lithuania and Poland. Lukashenko has blamed the United States and its allies for fomenting the unrest following his landslide reelection to a sixth term last month, an outcome that protesters in Belarus say resulted from vote-rigging.

“We are forced to withdraw troops from the streets, put the army on high alert and close the state border on the west, primarily with Lithuania and Poland,” Lukashenko said while addressing a women’s forum, adding that Belarus’ border with Ukraine also would be strengthened.

But the national Border Guard Service said all border checkpoints remained open, though it said controls and inspections have been strengthened.

A spokeswoman for the Polish Border Guard, Agnieszka Golias, said traffic at Poland’s border with Belarus was as busy as usual. Lithuanian authorities also reported no changes.

Lukashenko’s main challenger in the election, former English teacher and political novice Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, dismissed Lukashenko’s claims as part of his efforts to denigrate protesters and to blame foreign influences for the outpouring of anger toward him and calls for his resignation on the streets of Belarus.

“Lukashenko already has tried to scare us with enemies that don’t exist. He has accused peaceful people of being engaged in violence and tried to cast the true patriots as traitors,” Tsikhanouskaya said in a statement. “But his talk yesterday about closing the borders marks a new level of distancing from reality. It was talk by a weak person about his own imaginary world.”