Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has responded to
remarks made by British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who earlier weighed in on the migrant crisis unfolding on the Poland-Belarus border, urging
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to step in and end Minsk’s attempt to use “desperate migrants as pawns” to destabilise the region.
“Russia has a clear responsibility here. They must press the Belarusian authorities to end the crisis and enter into dialogue,” wrote Truss in The Telegraph, as she deplored what she referred to as a “carefully crafted crisis” that she blamed on the government of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko.
Truss, in her column for The Telegraph, had insisted that Britain would “not look away” in a situation when its European allies were being forced to “bear the brunt” of a manipulated situation designed to distract from a “litany of abhorrent acts and human rights violations” ostensibly perpetrated by Alexander Lukashenko’s government.
“Until London is held accountable for its crimes, its officials have no right to accuse anyone,” remonstrated Maria Zakkarova.
On Sunday, Liz Truss had also underscored that the UK stood with its allies in the region, besides Poland, such as others in the Visegrad Four – Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic – and “friends in the Baltics and Ukraine”. The British Foreign Secretary even went as far as to urge the European Union to reconsider dependence on Russia for gas supplies by cancelling the
Nord Stream 2 pipeline, completed on 10 September and awaiting certification.
‘Crisis of Their Own Making’
The crisis on Belarus’ borders with Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, where tens of thousands of migrants, primarily from the Middle East and Africa, have traveled since the beginning of the year, sharply escalated on 8 November. Several thousand people had arrived at the border with Poland and set up camp there, with many hoping to make their way into the European Union and travel further west, presumably to Germany.
Brussels has blamed Minsk for the escalation of the situation, accusing it of using migrants as a "hybrid weapon".
Some EU countries demanding fresh sanctions against Belarus. President Alexander Lukashenko redirected the blame for the crisis towards the Western countries themselves, who had fueled a situation that prompted the people to flee their
war-ravaged nations amid decades of military interventions in the Middle East and North Africa. Furthermore, Lukashenko emphasised that previous rounds of EU sanctions against Belarus have drained his country's ability to control migration flows.
*Daesh (aka ISIL, ISIS) is a terrorist organization banned in Russia and other countries.