November 10, 2021 10:03 AM
The formula adopted on November 9 by a German minister sums up the situation well: that conducted against the European Union is “a hybrid war”, or rather a modus operandi that mixes destabilizing actions and an information war, and can also include military interventions .
It is an adequate description of what is happening on the border between Poland and Belarus, where thousands of migrants, mostly from the Middle East, are being led to the scene by the forces of the dictatorial Minsk regime and pushed towards Polish territory.
The story hides a double trap and causes diplomatic turmoil, within the Union but also within NATO, worried by the tensions on the eastern flank of Europe. The double risk is that of a purely security reaction that does not take into account the humanitarian crisis and that of an insufficient political reaction. In both cases, Europe would be the loser.
This is clearly a trap if we consider that the influx of migrants is not caused by a war or a catastrophe, as happened in 2015 with the Syrian refugees, but by a deliberate strategy.
Poland is reacting by trying by all means to prevent migrants from crossing the border and pushing them back to Belarus. But the Belarusian border agents do not let the refugees go back, and they also resort to arms. Thousands of people are stranded in a no-man’s land inaccessible to humanitarian organizations, in freezing conditions. Some have already lost their lives.
The Russian propaganda media enter the fray by speaking only of the behavior of the Polish forces. One newspaper joked that Warsaw had followed the Americans into the Iraq war but today refuses to take in few Iraqi refugees.
By ignoring the humanitarian dimension of the crisis, Poland risks losing the information battle.
The second trap relates to the political response. There are clearly well-organized flows to Belarus. A video shot a few days ago at Damascus airport shows an endless queue apparently made up of Iraqi Kurds preparing to board for Minsk.
A Syrian private airline would be involved in the maneuver, and this makes it difficult to implement the sanctions mentioned on November 8 by the president of the European Commission. The airline in question, in fact, does not serve European destinations, and its routes are limited to the Middle East and Russia.
On November 9, Belarusian dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko spoke to Vladimir Putin, who is now representing his life insurance. The key to this crisis is clearly in Moscow, as confirmed by the German interior minister.
How can the European Union defend itself and above all make itself respected by adversaries who know how to destabilize it without great effort? We await the European response.
(Translation by Andrea Sparacino)
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