Anatol Kotau: You Need To Close Railway Transit On Belarusian Border First

This will be the most hurtful blow for Lukashenka.

Poland and the Baltic countries put forward an ultimatum to Lukashenka.

The dictator must expel the “Wagnerites” who are in Belarus, and stop provocations on the borders with the EU, otherwise the border crossings will be closed.

What is the basis of such a position of the neighboring countries and how can events develop in the future?

The Charter97.org website talked about this with Belarusian political scientist Anatol Kotau:

— The threat (for the countries neighboring Belarus — edit.) truly exists. Of course, the Wagner group does not pose any serious danger directly militarily, but provocations, skirmishes at the border, a completely different nature of illegal migration — all this can take place.

Therefore, Poland and the Baltic states assess the risks to their own security and are ready to close the borders to prevent them. How appropriate is this? In my opinion, tactical nuclear weapons and smuggling should also be added to the list of risks outlined in the joint statement. This is what the Belarusian opposition is talking about and what the Lithuanian interior minister described as one of the threats to the European Union.

As requirements, again at the request of the representatives of democratic Belarus (and in a sense this should have been shared by Poland), the release of political prisoners could also be included.

But then we would come to the conclusion that, first of all, it is necessary to block railway transit.

As can be seen from the statements and actions of the same Lithuanian side, first of all, we are talking about the blocking of road checkpoints.

That is, we are not talking about closing the movement of goods, which would be logical and absolutely correct as an ultimatum, but closing the border mainly for the movement of citizens.

This will be painful for the regime, but even more painful for the Belarusians who stay inside the country.

— Experts link the recent visit of the head of the Chinese Ministry of Defense to Minsk with China's concern about its exports through Belarus. To what extent will closing the borders be a painful blow to the dictatorship?

— When the situation with illegal migration in 2021 was about to completely get out of control, when there were massive assaults on the border, then China, in fact, played its role.

The warning that this was not in Beijing's interests, as well as some pressure on Russia, played a certain part. Then these massive assaults stopped.

In 2023, the situation is a little different: China should have a certain influence on Lukashenka, but at the same time, we see that, according to the statistics of rail transportation, it is transit in the Europe-China direction that has dipped to the ultimatum by 40%.

In general, Beijing is preparing to allow its main traffic to bypass Russia and Belarus. It's possible, it's absolutely real.

That is, they have prepared a plan B for 2023, the Belarusian transit is important for them.

Therefore, it is quite possible that this instrument of pressure can be used in some form, but for China, transit through Russia and Belarus to Europe and in the opposite direction is no longer so critical.

Now China's interest in putting pressure on Belarus and Russia is slightly less than it was two years ago.

— Lithuania plans to close two more checkpoints — “Pryvalki” and “Katlouka” — against the background of the fact that already now there are huge queues at the border. How will the closure of two more border crossings affect the situation?

— The whole problem is in such a general track along which the whole story with borders goes. If we are talking about Lukashenka somehow changing his policy towards neighboring countries and the population of Belarus, we must use the argument that is really painful for him.

This is rail transit, which carries the bulk of the goods and is much more important for the regime.

But we just see that there is such a “slicing of salami” — the gradual closure of road checkpoints.

The closure of the two previous checkpoints on the Lithuanian border did not actually have a serious impact on the traffic between the countries, because they were not of regional importance and were not used for all types of transportation: for the most part, it was possible to cross the border in passenger cars at these checkpoints . But the closure of the next two can really lead to a more difficult situation on the Belarusian-European border.

In Poland, in fact, there are only two checkpoints left — one for cargo transportation, the other for passengers.

Two of the four really important ones will remain in Lithuania, so there will be a serious growth in the load on them with an increase in queues for all types of traffic, from freight to passenger.

But there are still two in Latvia, but for some reason they are not yet popular.

It is quite possible that part of the flows will be redirected there, these are additional kilometers for those who planned to get to Western Europe, or at least to the same

Poland, bypassing the queue.

Accordingly, we will see, on the one hand, a blow to road transport and to some part of smuggling carried by road transport.

But on the other hand, this will seriously complicate the issue of the movement of Belarusian citizens. Some of them will have to leave the country because the situation is deteriorating. This is also the question of those political prisoners who, so to speak, were “lucky” to get to prison first and receive shorter sentences: they need to leave so as not to receive new prison terms.

But most importantly, the document that was adopted at the end of the meeting states that in the event of some critical incident (such an incident can be called either a massive assault or shooting at the border), all the borders of Belarus will be closed for the movement of citizens, with the exception of some humanitarian corridors for representatives of the opposition.

This will be a serious problem if the humanitarian crisis in Belarus intensifies. Some kind of escalation on the external border will clearly precede the deepening of the humanitarian crisis in Belarus, and those who live in the occupied territory, but did not think about leaving it, in the event of an escalation, will actually be deprived of such an opportunity.

If you put pressure on the regime, you need to close rail transit, and open the border for citizens or humanitarian corridors as widely as possible if even land borders are closed.

That is, all this is developing, unfortunately, according to an unfavorable scenario for Belarus. Obviously, in this case, it is easier for Western partners to protect only their own interests in the event of an escalation, to lower a new “Iron Curtain”, which will cut off not Belarus, but Belarusians from Europe.

For many, this will become an insurmountable barrier in case of an urgent need to leave the country.

We have a very sad situation: when a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, we perfectly saw crowds of refugees, dozens of thousands of people on the external border of Ukraine with the European Union.

They were refugees from a country that had been subjected to aggression.

In Belarus, in the event of a new escalation, the situation will be worse, these will be refugees who flee, on the one hand, from the occupied country, and on the other, from the territory of the co-aggressor country.

The situation will be more painful, because if in the first case, it was such a most favored nation treatment, then in the second case it will be a filtering mode.

I believe that now the task of all Belarusian democratic forces, all Belarusian migration, the opposition, you can call it whatever you like, should be to correct the decision that has not yet been made, but the already clear policy of closing the borders.

It is necessary to put pressure on the regime, and not close the doors for Belarusian citizens.

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