Excerpt from a publication by EU vs Disinfo
The Belarusian state propaganda machine launches attacks in support of the regime's cynical instrumentalization of immigrants.
In recent weeks, tensions between Belarus and its neighboring EU member states have taken a worrying turn for the worse. Belarus’s systematic and cynical instrumentalization of migrants for political purposes and its efforts to destabilize the EU’s eastern borders have entered a new phase of escalation. According to news sources, columns of migrants, arriving in Minsk from a number of countries, were directed by Belarusian authorities towards the Polish border, where clashes ensued.
Against this backdrop, the EU Commission has called on EU member states to adopt an expanded sanctions regime against Belarusian authorities; Polish authorities have been forced to increase the number of soldiers and border guards protecting the EU's external border; and Lithuanian authorities declared a state of emergency on the country's border with Belarus.
Even the President of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has raised the question of who is the main culprit for this hybrid attack against the EU? If you ask the Belarusian propaganda machine and the pro-Kremlin media, the answer becomes clear – it is the collective West, the Polish authorities sending tanks to the border, and the EU adopting sanctions for its own internal purposes.
All this disinformation distracts from the fact that “the authoritarian regime in Belarus is exploiting human beings for political reasons,” as EU Commissioner Ylva Johansson put it. Belarus is cynically exploiting migrants in an attempt to take revenge on the EU, which does not recognize the falsified results of the recent presidential election in Belarus and has imposed restrictive measures against the regime and individuals for, among other things, the suppression of peaceful demonstrators, human rights violations, and the forced landing of a Ryanair flight in Minsk.
Poland and Lithuania have found themselves in the mainstream news of pro-Kremlin media. For example, according to one source, Poland is preparing for war with Russia and Belarus, which sounds like a rather strange theory to say the least. Lithuania, on the other hand, has been labeled as an aggressive human rights violator, which according to reliable sources, seems to be far from the truth and a case of psychological projection.
An escalating situation such as the one currently unfolding on the EU's eastern external border often contains large amounts of disinformation. It serves the aggressor's purpose to muddy the waters, shift the blame elsewhere, and justify their actions. Moreover, tarnishing the adversary's external image is very high on the aggressor's campaign agenda. All of this is evident in the current situation and in the disinformation being spread by pro-Kremlin media and the Belarusian regime.