The Economist explains

What is happening on the Poland-Belarus border?

Belarus’s thuggish president is importing would-be migrants to divide the EU

TOPSHOT - A picture taken on November 8, 2021 shows migrants at the Belarusian-Polish border in the Grodno region. - Poland on November 8 said hundreds of migrants in Belarus were descending on its border aiming to force their way into the EU member in what NATO slammed as a deliberate tactic by Minsk. (Photo by Leonid Shcheglov / BELTA / AFP) / Belarus OUT (Photo by LEONID SHCHEGLOV/BELTA/AFP via Getty Images)

A BIG INFLUX of migrants in 2015 sparked a political crisis within the European Union. Now a rogue regime on its border is trying to engineer another one. On November 8th at the Kuznica-Bruzhi border crossing, which straddles Poland and Belarus, several thousand migrants, mainly from the Middle East, lined up against police in riot gear behind a recently constructed razor-wire fence. A crowd of young men chanted the word “Germany” and tried to enter EU territory. Babies bawled on Belarusian state television. The scenes look a lot like 2015. Eurocrats insist that the whole thing has been staged by one man: Alexander Lukashenko, the despotic president of Belarus. What is going on?

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