Belarus–European Union border crisis

Poland and the Baltic states urged the European Union this week to strengthen its eastern border, warning in a joint letter to Brussels of a "looming threat" from Russia and Belarus.

The four EU members are staunch allies of Ukraine, which has been fighting a fully-fledged Russian invasion for more than two years.

Bulgarian border police successfully prevented approximately 180,000 attempts by migrants to enter the country illegally in 2023, according to recent data released by the Interior Ministry on Wednesday.

Let us remind you that about a month ago, Finland decided to close its borders with Russia due to what they believe was a deliberate influx of migrants from Russia. Finland considers this to be Russia's revenge for its membership in NATO.

34 illegal migrants were detained at the entrance to Sofia.

They are Afghans. They traveled for 8 days from Turkey to Bulgaria.

The United States Embassy in Belarus issued a warning on Monday and urged its citizens to leave Belarus immediately.

A statement noted that Lithuania had previously closed two of its border crossings with Belarus and that Poland and Latvia had indicated they might do the same.

They made that decision after they determined that two Belarusian helicopters had violated Polish airspace.
"It was established that today, August 1, 2023, there was a violation of Polish airspace by two Belarusian helicopters that were conducting training near the border," the ministry said in a statement.

Brussels -- EU leaders broke off migration talks early this morning after Poland and Hungary blocked further talks.

More than 38,000 migrant smugglers have been apprehended and over 9,000 suspects have been arrested in Turkey in the past six years, according to the Presidency of Migration Management.

From Jan. 1 to April 19 this year, security forces have captured 2,545 migrant smugglers, which points to a 53 percent increase from the same period in 2021, the authority said in a statement.

Poland blames Belarusian regime for encouraging illegal immigrants to fly to Belarus promising entrance into the EU just as Turkey did in 2020 at the Greek borders

Poland said on Nov. 20 that Belarus has changed tactics in their border crisis by directing smaller groups of migrants to several points along the European Union's eastern frontier.

Though there have been signs of the crisis easing, Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said he expected the border showdown to be long drawn out while Belarus said the situation remained "tense".