Two reports from the last days of November 2021

What was happening in Ukraine and its neighbourhood as 1 December 2021 began? Two reports from the preceding days, one local and one regional, set the scene.

On 27 November 2021, an explosion tore through a five-storey residential building in Nova Odesa, in Mykolaiv region. Preliminary information pointed to household gas. Two flats were destroyed, three people were killed and three were injured.

A day earlier, on 26 November 2021, the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, made his first public appearance at the Belarus–Poland border since the migrant crisis began. He addressed migrants there and told them they were free either to return home or to head west. He said Belarus would not detain, choke or beat those who wanted to go west, and urged them to go through.

The wider crisis

As later described, the border crisis had begun in August 2021, when the Belarusian government started sponsoring an influx of migrants, mostly from the Middle East and North Africa, to the borders of Lithuania, Poland and Latvia. Belarus denied involvement. The European Union and independent observers saw it as hybrid warfare, a response to worsening relations after the 2020 presidential election and the protests of 2020–2021.

Between August and December 2021, tens of thousands of unauthorised crossing attempts were recorded, peaking in October. Later reporting added that at least 20 migrants died over the following winter from harsh weather and abuse by border authorities.