Thousands of people are stranded in freezing conditions at the Belarusian-Polish border / Photo: REUTERS
Belarus threatens to cut off gas to EU in border row
The EU is reportedly preparing fresh sanctions over an escalating migrant crisis at Belarus’s border…
Belarus’s leader has threatened to cut off gas supplies to Europe if sanctions are imposed over an escalating migrant crisis at the country’s western border.
Thousands of people, mostly from Iraq, Syria and Yemen, are at the border with Poland, enduring freezing conditions in the hope of crossing into the EU.
EU officials have accused Belarus of provoking the crisis to undermine its security, an allegation it denies.
In retaliation, the EU is reportedly planning a fresh package of sanctions.
But on Thursday the country’s long-time authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko warned: “If they impose additional sanctions on us… we must respond”.
“We are heating Europe, and they are threatening us,” he said, referring to a Russian gas pipeline that runs through Belarus and into the EU.