Putin: Russia ready to help resolve migrant crisis on Belarus, Poland border
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said his country is fully prepared to help resolve a migrant crisis on the border between Belarus and Poland if necessary.
“We are ready to help it by all means if, of course, anything would depend on us,” Putin said on Sunday, according to RIA news agency.
Elsewhere in the interview, Putin said he had spoken with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko twice since the migrant crisis began.
The Russian president added that he had initially learned about the crisis from the media.
Thousands of migrants have traveled to Belarus trying to cross into the European Union, only to be stranded on the country’s border with Poland in freezing temperatures after Poland closed its border with Belarus.
In recent days, more refugees and migrants have been joining the stranded crowds near the Belarus-Poland border, facing a barbed wire fence and masses of security forces deployed by Warsaw.
The West accuses Belarus of orchestrating the crisis by coordinating the wave of asylum seekers in retaliation for existing sanctions imposed by the EU against the country, but still, it has promised more sanctions.
EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, was quoted as saying that the EU will widen sanctions on Belarus to include airlines and travel agencies thought to be involved in transporting migrants.
Poland accused Moscow and Mink of using migrants as “human shields to destabilize the situation in Poland and the EU.”
Lukashenko, however, has denied the allegations.
Lukashenko accused Poland last week of blackmailing his country by sending armored vehicles and troops to the border.
Russia has blamed the EU for the crisis, saying the bloc has been trying to “strangle” Belarus with plans to close part of the frontier.
In remarks on Saturday, Putin denied accusations that Moscow is helping Belarus orchestrate the ongoing migrant crisis, saying, “I want everyone to know. We have nothing to do with it.”
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