It is the middle of the night in a freezing forest along the Poland-Belarus border. Thousands of migrants, cramped together, are attempting to cross the fortified border into the European Union. Those around you are pelting Poland’s defence forces with stones, resulting in tear gas and water cannons being deployed into your makeshift camps. In the face of political turmoil, rising migrant aggression, border insecurity, and government corruption, this crisis along the border is a reality for the thousands of people seeking entry into the EU.

Migrants, mostly from the Middle East, have been slowly compiling along Belarus’s borders. Back in August, Afghans fleeing Taliban rule led to a spike in border crossings in Belarus as the migrants fled to the more prosperous nations bordering Belarus, all of them, with the exception of Ukraine, being part of the EU. These past few weeks, the number of crossings is surging again due to the Iraqis and Syrians. Surprisingly, the border crisis may be part of a deliberate act by the Belarusian government to undermine the EU.

Belarus has been in a state of political turmoil since August 2020, when the incumbent president Alexander Lukashenko purported that he won the election with more than 80% of the vote. However, large-scale protests quickly erupted as Belarusians called out corruption in the election, which they described as neither free nor fair. In retaliation, the government attempted to silence the protesters by arresting them. The European Union, which values democracy, then responded by placing sanctions on Belarus, which have remained in place to this day. President Lukashenko has long criticized the EU sanctions on Belarus, especially after new sanctions were announced when the border crisis developed in November 2021. Therefore, some political analysts believe that Belarus is purposefully encouraging migrants to cross into the EU to undermine the values of the European Union.

The government has, of course, denied these accusations. However, on the border with Poland alone, there have been more than 5,000 crossings in November alone, compared to 88 in all of 2020. Poland especially has been unwelcoming of foreigners; for example, the 2015-2016 exodus of Syrian refugees into Europe led to significant controversy in Poland as politicians refused to allow these people in. Today, Belarus’s actions are being described by Poland as a “deliberate attack” against nationalist Polish values.

Whatever the motivations behind the Poland-Belarus border crisis, one thing is for certain: there is an emergency. Both sides have grown increasingly aggressive in recent days, with physical violence rising and dead bodies piling. As the game of Belarusian politics interferes with the core of the European Union, only time will tell how the crisis will unfold.