Zakharova Slams UK Foreign Secretary For Blaming Belarus for 'Carefully Crafted' Migrant Crisis

Writing for The Telegraph, Liz Truss, Britain’s Foreign Secretary, had demanded that Russia “press the Belarusian authorities” to resolve the situation on the border with Poland as The Kremlin purportedly had a “clear responsibility” to thus respond to what she claimed was a “shameful manufactured migrant crisis”.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has responded to remarks made by British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who earlier weighed in on the migrant crisis unfolding on the Poland-Belarus border, urging Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to step in and end Minsk’s attempt to use “desperate migrants as pawns” to destabilise the region.

“Russia has a clear responsibility here. They must press the Belarusian authorities to end the crisis and enter into dialogue,” wrote Truss in The Telegraph, as she deplored what she referred to as a “carefully crafted crisis” that she blamed on the government of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko.

“The UK’s intervention in Iraq – now that was ‘carefully crafted’. 45 thousand British soldiers helped the United States occupy that country, kill its citizens and plunder its riches. Britain bears a clear historical responsibility for everything that happens from that moment in the region - the death of Iraqis, the destruction of Iraqi statehood, endless flows of refugees, the emergence of Daesh*, humanitarian disasters in this part of the world,” wrote Zakharova on Telegram on Sunday.

Truss, in her column for The Telegraph, had insisted that Britain would “not look away” in a situation when its European allies were being forced to “bear the brunt” of a manipulated situation designed to distract from a “litany of abhorrent acts and human rights violations” ostensibly perpetrated by Alexander Lukashenko’s government.

“Until London is held accountable for its crimes, its officials have no right to accuse anyone,” remonstrated Maria Zakkarova.

On Sunday, Liz Truss had also underscored that the UK stood with its allies in the region, besides Poland, such as others in the Visegrad Four – Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic – and “friends in the Baltics and Ukraine”. The British Foreign Secretary even went as far as to urge the European Union to reconsider dependence on Russia for gas supplies by cancelling the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, completed on 10 September and awaiting certification.

A road sign directs traffic towards the Nord Stream 2 gas line landfall facility entrance in Lubmin, Germany, September 10, 2020.

© REUTERS / Hannibal Hanschke

“It risks undermining European security by allowing Russia to tighten its grip on those nations who rely on its gas, despite the pandemic reminding us about the importance of having diverse supply chains to avoid being strategically dependent on unreliable partners,” Truss said of Nord stream 2.

‘Crisis of Their Own Making’

The crisis on Belarus’ borders with Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, where tens of thousands of migrants, primarily from the Middle East and Africa, have traveled since the beginning of the year, sharply escalated on 8 November. Several thousand people had arrived at the border with Poland and set up camp there, with many hoping to make their way into the European Union and travel further west, presumably to Germany.

Brussels has blamed Minsk for the escalation of the situation, accusing it of using migrants as a "hybrid weapon".

Polish soldiers and police watch migrants at the Poland/Belarus border near Kuznica, Poland, in this photograph released by the Territorial Defence Forces, November 12, 2021

© REUTERS / HANDOUT

Some EU countries demanding fresh sanctions against Belarus. President Alexander Lukashenko redirected the blame for the crisis towards the Western countries themselves, who had fueled a situation that prompted the people to flee their war-ravaged nations amid decades of military interventions in the Middle East and North Africa. Furthermore, Lukashenko emphasised that previous rounds of EU sanctions against Belarus have drained his country's ability to control migration flows.

*Daesh (aka ISIL, ISIS) is a terrorist organization banned in Russia and other countries.