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Belarus border closure and Lithuania's emergency declaration
Summary
A look back at two border disputes involving Belarus that were reported on 2 July 2021 and were still being discussed the next day.
What was Minsk's neighbourhood policy looking like on 3 July 2021? The day followed two reported developments on 2 July that put Belarus at odds with both Ukraine and Lithuania.
On 2 July, Belarus closed its border with Ukraine. President Alexander Lukashenko claimed that arms were being smuggled into the country in an attempt by "outside powers" to overthrow his regime. He said they had crossed the line and that he could not forgive them.
Ukraine denied the claims. It also said that closing the border would make its people suffer.
The same day, Lithuania declared a state of emergency amid a rise in the number of undocumented migrants crossing from Belarus. The Lithuanian government accused Lukashenko of deliberately trying to destabilise the country by encouraging and allowing refugees, mostly Syrians, to cross the border.
Two neighbours, two accusations
The two cases differed in detail. In one, Lukashenko accused outsiders of arms smuggling and Ukraine rejected the charge. In the other, Lithuania accused Lukashenko himself of using migration to destabilise its territory.
Both, however, centred on Belarus's borders and on sharp public exchanges between Minsk and its neighbours as July began.
