Over the second half of 2021, a major humanitarian and political crisis
has developed on the border between Belarus and Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania as thousands of
migrants - mainly from the Middle East - have attempted to cross into the European Union.
But what sets this apart from other migrant crises in recent years is the claim that Belarus
has deliberately engineered the situation as part of what's been called a hybrid attack on the EU.
But what exactly does this mean? And does this really qualify?
Hello and welcome. If you're new to the channel, my name is James Ker-Lindsay
and here I take an informed look at international relations, conflicts and the origins of countries.
One of the most interesting developments in contemporary international relations has been
the emergence of the concept of hybrid warfare, also known as hybrid conflict.
According to the Hybrid Centre of Excellence - a leading international body working on the
issue - this refers to, 'an action conducted by state or non-state actors, whose goal is to
undermine or harm a target by combining overt and covert military and non-military means.'
In real terms, this encompasses an enormous range of activities.
It can include manipulating social media to spread disinformation;
interfering in elections by covertly funding political parties or pressure groups;
waging cyber attacks on critical infrastructure;
or even using paramilitaries and other groups to sow discontent.
Indeed, the range of activities is potentially so broad it seems only limited by imagination.
Recently, the concept has gained international attention with claims that
Belarus has been engaged in a hybrid attack against the European Union.
However, rather than using social media, cyber attacks,
or paramilitaries the accusation is that Minsk has in fact used migrants.
Belarus lies in northeast Europe.
At around 210,000 square kilometres, or
80,000 square miles, it's the 84th largest of the 193 members of the United Nations.
Its population currently stands around 9.4 million.
Landlocked, its neighbours are Russia to the east and Ukraine to the south.
EU members Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia lie to its west.
Our story really starts with the collapse of the Soviet Union in August 1991.
The Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic declared independence becoming the Republic of Belarus.
Three years later, its first post-independence
presidential elections were won by Alexander Lukashenko.
Once in power, Lukashenko set to work imposing a Soviet-style command economy
and consolidating his political position by curbing democratic freedoms.
At the same time, he built close ties to neighbouring Russia.
Sensing an opportunity to take over from Boris Yeltsin, the ailing Russian president,
he even signed a treaty on political union between the two countries in early December 1999.
However Lukashenka's hopes of political domination would be short-lived.
Just weeks later, Yeltsin resigned and Vladimir Putin took over Russia.
As Putin gained in strength, and it became obvious that Belarus would be a very
junior partner in any union, relations between Moscow and Minsk began to fray.
Although Lukashenko couldn't break his ties to Russia completely,
especially as it remained the country's main trading partner and energy supplier,
he reached out to the EU and the United States to counterbalance Russia's influence.
However, as time passed, this relationship also came under
strain as Lukashenka's authoritarianism became increasingly difficult to ignore.
This came to a head in August 2020 when he declared victory
after deeply flawed presidential elections .
Facing mass protests at home, and growing condemnation from the European Union,
Lukashenko again turned to Russia for assistance and cracked down on opposition.
This led to a major incident when, on 23 May 2021,
Belarus forced a commercial aircraft flying from Greece to Lithuania to land at Minsk
and arrested one of its passengers - a journalist critical of the regime.
Incensed at what was widely seen as an act of air piracy,
European leaders announced that Belarusian aircraft would be banned from the European Union.
And it was this decision that appears to have sparked the current crisis.
Just days after the restrictions were imposed, Lithuanian officials announced a sharp increase
in the number of people attempting to illegally cross the border from Belarus.
Although the numbers were small - around 50 - this was more than
half the number of crossings made during the whole of 2020.
In the weeks and months that followed, numbers rose rapidly all along the Belarusian border
with the European Union as Poland and Latvia also reported hundreds of migrants trying to cross.
Although there had been suspicions from the start that the Belarusian government was involved,
by September it was widely seen as a deliberately planned and targeted policy.
Delivering her annual state of the union speech to the European Parliament, Ursula van der Leyen,
the president of the European Commission, accused Minsk of instrumentalising human beings
by bringing them to Belarus and then pushing them towards europe's borders.
Putting it directly, she said:
"Let's call it what it is. This is a hybrid attack to destabilise Europe."
Meanwhile, over the course of October and early November the situation became
steadily more serious as thousands more people made their way to the border;
only to be blocked by razor wire fences or pushed back by border guards.
At the same time, the onset of winter made the
plight of those trapped on the border all the more desperate.
With dire conditions in the makeshift camps, and even reports of deaths, tensions spilled over.
Footage released by the Polish Government showed people trying to cut through the
barbed wire fences and throwing stones at border guards only to be repelled by water cannons.
So, where do things stand now?
It seems that the confrontation between Belarus and the EU,
at least on this issue and for now, is in fact now easing.
EU pressure on Belarus seems to be having an effect.
Although Lukashenko threatened to cut gas supplies to the EU if the Union imposed further sanctions,
Putin quickly made it clear that Russia,
which would pay the economic cost for this move, would not let it happen.
As a result, the EU has since passed a raft of new measures against the Minsk regime.
On top of this, there are also other signs that the worst may be over.
For a start, the flow of people to Belarus appears to have dropped significantly after
the European Union threatened tough action against foreign airlines brining migrants to the country.
Meanwhile, there are also reports that repatriations from Belarus
have now started as Minsk's seeks to return people to the Middle East.
That said, all is far from well.
With thousands of people still trapped at the border,
including many women and children, international aid organisations,
including the United Nations, are warning the urgent action is needed.
Naturally, all this raises several important questions.
For example, first of all, was it really a hybrid attack?
For his part, Lukashenko has hit back at such claims - categorically denying any hand in events.
Arguing that the migrants traveled to Belarus of their own free will,
taking advantage of visa free travel, he insisted that it would just be
too difficult to coordinate such a large-scale operation.
However, within the EU and NATO the view is that it was definitely planned.a
As officials point out,
Belarus does not have borders with any of the countries where the migrants came from.
They had to fly there and Minsk was not going to accept so many migrants - including
refugees and asylum seekers - if it felt that it had to deal with them.
Additionally, pictures have emerged of Belarusian troops escorting the migrants to the border.
In this sense, the case for a planned policy seems clear.
The next obvious question is whether it was successful?
In one sense, the answer would seem to be 'yes'.
Migration has been a potent political issue since the crisis that struck Greece and Italy in 2015,
when over a million people crossed the Aegean and Mediterranean.
And although this was never going to be on that scale, it was clearly designed
to play on popular fears about another influx of refugees and economic migrants.
But it's also caused divisions in Europe.
The fact that it was focused on Poland was very telling
given the country's fierce opposition to accepting people during the 2015 crisis.
And its hardline approach this time, which has seen it unlawfully pushing back people
across the border and using force, even knowing that they faced dire conditions,
has seen it come under huge criticism from EU partners and human rights organisations alike.
Such criticism have been especially marked as Poland also rejected calls
to cooperate with Frontex, the EU's border and coast guard agency - which
is actually based in the Polish capital, Warsaw.
Thirdly, it also damaged the EU's wider standing.
The EU prides itself on its values, including respect for human rights.
However, many observers have argued that the EU has been no better than Belarus
by allowing people to be forced back and remain in such awful conditions.
The images emerging from the border will have sent a powerful message.
While many in Europe might believe that this tough approach will deter people
from making their way to the European Union, it will also have confirmed the view in the
eyes of many in the Middle East and beyond that the EU is inherently opposed to Islam.
In this sense, all this could be read as a victory for Lukashenko.
But, in another way, it's been a failure.
While it's certainly been disruptive and divisive,
it hasn't been fundamentally destabilising for the EU.
It certainly hasn't grabbed european public and policymakers attention
in the same way as the crisis of 2015.
On top of this, Lukashenko now faces even tougher European restrictions on his regime
and is having to orchestrate the return of the migrants.
And this ties in to one further obvious question: was Russia involved?
Many observers certainly believe that Moscow was complicit,
especially given its growing mastery in hybrid warfare.
However, in a televised interview, President Putin
categorically denied any direct or indirect involvement in the crisis.
In fact, he even went as far as to blame Western countries for the situation;
arguing that it was their interventions in the Middle east that sparked the instability
that led to recent waves of mass migration.
But regardless of whether Russia did or didn't have a direct hand in the situation,
one can argue that Moscow has nevertheless emerged as the big winner in all this.
Aside from the divisions and disruptions its cause for the European Union,
further EU sanctions against Belarus have made Lukashenko even more reliant on Moscow.
In this sense, if this was indeed a hybrid attack it may well have been
far more sophisticated than many realise.
Hybrid warfare is a relatively new term in international relations to describe a
form of conflict that can incorporate a range of tools and techniques to undermine an opponent.
While we may think of it as being focused on cyber attacks and misinformation,
it extends well beyond these.
What we've seen on the Belarus border certainly appears to be a case in point.
The arrival of large numbers of migrants in the country does seem to have been an
orchestrated policy designed to undermine Poland,
Latvia and Lithuania, in particular, and the EU more generally.
To this extent, it could indeed be classed as a hybrid attack;
albeit a worrying new addition to the arsenal.
But let's also not forget that there's clearly an appalling human dimension to this.
In waging this attack, Lukashenko deliberately lured desperate and vulnerable people to Belarus
and then used them to create tensions and discord within the European Union.
To this end, not only did he weaponise migrants, but he also targeted them.
I hope you found that useful. If so, here are some more videos that you might find interesting.
Thanks so much for watching and see you in the next video.