Putin and Lukashenko wage hybrid war against Baltic states – NATO remains silent

Former collective farm chief Aleksandr Lukashenko, who has usurped power in Belarus by proclaiming himself the “legitimately elected” president of Belarus, has found himself in a tricky situation.

He keeps spilling the blood of the Belarusian people because for him there is no way back. Perhaps the people that called him the “Grain Gaddafi” have accidentally predicted the inevitable fate of Europe’s last dictator.

 

The saddest thing in this situation is that the West, especially Old Europe, along with numerous international organizations like the UN, NATO, OSCE and even the EU are still naively slumbering. Obviously, there are more important things to study, for instance, Covid-19 or LGBT propaganda.

 

They would be even happier if the Baltic “Russophobes” would stop pointing their fingers towards the East and yelling that someone invaded Georgia, or annexed Crimea, or shot down some MH17 airplane, or poisoned some people. And now “someone” is also driving hordes of refugees to Lithuania!

 

The truth is that we are under attack in a hybrid war.

You’ve probably heard numerous times that the Kremlin is using Lukashenko as a scapegoat to send large numbers of “refugees” to Lithuania and Latvia, but on the political level no one yet seems to care. More than 4,000 migrants from Syria and Iraq have already arrived in Lithuania. Videos have been published in social media depicting Belarusian border guards who are escorting the “refugees” towards the Lithuanian border.

 

Latvia has too detained the first of Lukashenko’s “refugees” who are now in Daugavpils. Additionally, there’s irrefutable evidence that air traffic between Belarus and Iraq has been restored since May 2021, despite the Covid-19 pandemic once again gaining force.

 

These flights are actively funded by the Kremlin and Lukashenko. We know this from the fact that the number of flights from Iraq to Minsk has significantly increased in a short period of time. When the Covid-19 pandemic began, flights between both countries were suspended. As time passed, Europe pressured Lukashenko and imposed sanctions against his regime, forcing him to enact his revenge. And that’s why he played the “refugee card”.

 

In April, it was announced that air traffic between Belarus in Iraq has been restored and that there will be one flight each week.

In May, it was announced that there will be two flights each week. It is known that a single flight carried up to 200 “refugees”. In June, the number of flights increased two four, and the capacity of the airplanes doubled, meaning that each flight now carried roughly 400 “refugees”. This means that in June and July at least 6,500 “refugees” arrived in Belarus from Iraq – there were no women or children, only young men.

 

But it didn’t stop there. On 1 August, it was announced that in addition to the four weekly flights from Baghdad, there will be one flight per week that will take people from other regions of Iraq to Belarus. This means that each week 2,000 “refugees” arrived from Iraq to Minsk. This won’t surprise anyone, but all of the flights from Minsk to Baghdad were almost empty. This is because the goal of this scheme is to bring as many people from Iraq as possible to Belarus so they can be then directed to the EU via the Baltic states.

 

Former Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Linas Linkevičius noted:

“This influx of refugees in not a natural process, but a hybrid warfare act by Belarus [Lukashenko’s regime]. This is the regime’s reaction to EU sanctions and pressure. Lukashenko threatened that he will fill Europe with drugs and migrants. The majority of migrants come from Iraq.”

There you have it – Lukashenko did what he said he was going to do. And he is still doing it!

 

As I already wrote, it’s no secret that Lukashenko has ordered Belarusian border guards not only to not detain the “refugees”, but also to help them in reaching the Lithuanian border in groups. It has surfaced that Lukashenko’s regime launched an entire campaign in Iraq informing people on how to easily reach Europe via Minsk. On 1 August, when flights from Erbil began, roughly 2,300 tickets to Minsk were sold instantly, and it’s now impossible to get a ticket sooner that 30 October.

 

It seems that someone is deliberately buying all the tickets. This can only mean that the number of flights and the capacity of airplanes will increase if Putin and Lukashenko believe they need to speed up the process. This isn’t good for Lithuania or the EU as a whole, since none of the caught “refugees” have been able to acquire refugee status in Lithuania, meaning that they cannot stay in the EU.

Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid also believes that the “refugee” situation on the Lithuanian-Belarusian border is a hybrid attack against all of the Baltic states. Since this is an attack by a totalitarian regime, why isn’t NATO or the EU doing anything?

 

Thank you, Kersti Kaljulaid, for having the courage to call things exactly what they are. It seems that Lithuania is left alone to handle the crisis – only Ukraine has displayed some initiative by supplying Lithuania with barbed wire. However, there is still no collective response from NATO or the EU.

 

Meanwhile, the situation in Lithuania is worsening rapidly – Lithuanians are protesting against placing the migrants in special camps, and the 4,000 “refugees” themselves are not acting like asylum seekers usually do. There have already been clashes between the “refugees” and Lithuanian law enforcement authorities. These people are aggressive young men who grew up in conditions of war and repressions.

 

Along with the worsening “refugee situation”, there is also an increasing number of Lithuanian pro-Kremlin politicians, useful idiots and agents of influence who are pointing out that this is Lukashenko’s payback for interfering in Belarus’ domestic affairs. Sputnik jumps in excitement whenever a “refugee” from Iraq or Syria is detained in Lithuania and Latvia. On the bright side, at least this situation will expose some of the Kremlin’s useful idiots.

 

If NATO and the EU decide not to fully engage in repulsing this hybrid warfare attack, the “refugee” crisis in Lithuania will become more severe. For instance, this week the scheduled flights from Baghdad to Minsk are full, with only a handful of seats remaining in some flights. A one-way ticket costs 426 US dollars, and we can assume that this is paid for by Russian and Belarusian taxpayers.

If this continues, Lithuania may see an influx of more than 8,000 illegal immigrants over the course of the next month.

 

I am certain that the Kremlin and Lukashenko’s regime are using Iraqi and Syrian “refugees” as a weapon against the Baltic states and the EU as part of a hybrid war. The current situation in Lithuania proves that something is not right in the EU and NATO, as none of them seem to notice what’s going on.

 

This situation makes NATO look particularly weak – for five years it has blabbered about new hybrid threats and how to deal with them. Now we see a hybrid war taking place on European soil, but Brussels remains silent. Can we expect some response, solution or even retaliation? I think this is a rhetorical question. While NATO and the EU are headed by Western cowards, nothing will change.

 

We can only hope that the spineless Western men heading NATO will be replaced by an Eastern European lady with some b*lls, perhaps even someone from our neighboring countries. Maybe then our Western partners will be forced to open their eyes and admit that Belarus and Russia have been impudently undermining us for years.

 

Gatis Krūms