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Was Moscow behind the Belarus border crisis?
Summary
A look back at 9 November 2021, when Warsaw pointed at Moscow and Lithuania declared a state of emergency.
Who was responsible for the crowds of migrants massing on the Belarus–Poland border? On 9 November 2021, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki gave his answer, blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin for orchestrating the crisis. He said it had its mastermind in Moscow.
The accusation came a day after a large crowd of migrants, escorted by the Belarusian military, tried to break through the frontier near Bruzgi in Belarus's Grodno Region. As reported at the time, several migrants died. Seven were found dead on the Polish side of the border, and a few more deaths were reported in Belarus.
The pressure was not confined to Poland. On 9 November 2021, Lithuania announced a state of emergency, the first since its independence. The announcement came as neighbouring Poland faced attacks on its border.
A regional story with Ukrainian echoes
In Ukraine, the news agenda that week included a media story. On 7 November 2021, Petro Poroshenko announced that he was selling and transferring all his shares in the television channels Pryamyi and 5 Kanal to a newly created media holding, Vilni Media.
What the day showed
Taken together, the reports from 9 November 2021 show a border dispute in which a government publicly named a foreign leader as its architect. They also show that a neighbouring state judged the situation serious enough to invoke emergency powers for the first time in its post-independence history. For readers in Kyiv and across the region, the border was a place of deaths and of sharp political accusations.
