Belarus dictator calls on Russia for missiles
ALEXANDER LUKASHENKO, the Belarusian dictator behind the Polish migrant crisis, yesterday called on Russia to move its nuclear-capable missiles to the border with the EU.
At least 4,000 asylum seekers from the Middle East have been stuck in a Belarusian forest just metres away from the Polish border for five days as Poland refuses to take them in.
Mr Lukashenko, who previously lashed out at Poland for amassing troops near the camp, in an interview released yesterday said he had been asking Russia to deploy its newest nuclear-capable Iskander-M missiles in Belarus’s west and south, near Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine.
“I’ve been pestering your president: I really need those 500 kilometre-range missile systems,” he told a Russian journalist. “Let them stay here.”
The Kremlin did not immediately react to the reports, and military watchers were sceptical of the Belarusian dictator’s pleas. “It’s not in our interests to escalate the situation further right now,” Col Gen Yevgeny Buzhinsky, a retired senior commander at the Russian Defence Ministry, told the Interfax news agency.
“If we start deploying [the missiles], then what will stop the Americans from deploying their missiles somewhere in Poland or the Baltics?”
Last time Russia shipped the Iskander-M missiles to its western-most region bordering Poland and Lithuania, Poland placed its army on combat alert and the United State raised concerns about threats to European security.
Yesterday, Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, raised the possibility of talks between the EU and Mr Lukashenko in what could bring a breakthrough to solving the ongoing crisis on the EU border.
President Putin, who had two phone calls with Angela Merkel this week, in an interview with the Rossiya 1 TV channel revealed potential talks are being arranged: “As far as I understand, Alexander Lukashenko and Chancellor Merkel are willing to talk to each other. I hope this happens soon.”
He sought to distance himself from the migrant crisis orchestrated by the Belarusian regime. “I want everyone to know: we have absolutely nothing to do with this,” Mr Putin said, adding that the cause of the migrant crisis lies with Western policy in the Middle East.
The Belarusian dictator in May threatened to “flood” Europe with migrants, and just a few weeks later Poland and Lithuania started to see hundreds of Iraqi and Syrian asylum seekers crossing over through the porous Belarusian border.