Lithuania to Close Entry to Belarusian Citizens

The Lithuanian authorities are considering banning entry to the country for Belarusian citizens with Schengen visas. This was reported by the Delfi news website on Sept. 19. 

A similar decision to ban entry to Russians was made by the leadership of Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and Lithuania.

Agne Bilotaite, Lithuania’s Minister of the Interior, accused the Belarusian regime of participates in military operations and organizing hybrid attacks in Lithuania through the use illegal migrants. “I think these are serious arguments for resolving the issue of Belarusians,” the minister stressed.

This is not the first time that the Lithuanian state border service has claimed that Belarusian officials promote illegal migration to European Union countries. On Sept. 11 Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT quoted the border patrol saying that migrants are directly taken to the border and sent to the territory of neighboring states.

According to the official report, Lithuanian guards at the border with Belarus detained 107 illegal migrants on Sept. 10. In addition, on Sept. 9, 15 attempts of illegal crossing were recorded at the Latvian border, and Polish border guards detained 29 migrants at the border.

Moreover, the Lithuanian state border service says that almost 4,200 migrants arrived in Lithuania illegally from Belarus last year. That is why Lithuania completed the construction of a fence on the border with Belarus in August. A physical barrier consisting of a fence with razor wire was installed on sections for a length of 552 kilometers.

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The fact is that the problem of migrants is a hybrid attack by Belarus at the instigation of the Kremlin. Last year, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said that in response to EU sanctions he would stop restraining the movement of migrants through his country.

And Lithuania is not the only country that has decided to build a wall on the border with Belarus. Latvia and Poland, which have faced a similar problem, have done so as well.

For its part, Belarus accused the EU countries of “illegal behavior” with migrants and refugees and of violating its own principles.