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Kremlin says it was ‘irresponsible and unacceptable’ for the Polish prime minister to blame Vladimir Putin for the situation.
Russia blamed the EU on Wednesday for the ongoing migrant crisis at the Poland-Belarus border.
In a briefing, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the EU was failing to uphold its own humanitarian standards and that the bloc was actively trying to “strangle” Belarus, Reuters reported.
Moscow responded after Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of orchestrating the unfolding humanitarian crisis at the frontier, which has seen thousands of migrants from the Middle East, whose transit has been organized by the Belarusian regime, trying to enter Poland along its border with Belarus.
The escalating situation shows “a determination to carry out the scenario of rebuilding the Russian empire,” Morawiecki said, adding that it was a “directed spectacle.”
But Peskov hit back: “It is apparent that a humanitarian catastrophe is looming against the background of Europeans’ reluctance to demonstrate commitment to their European values.”
He added that Morawiecki’s comment that Putin had enabled the border crisis was “absolutely irresponsible and unacceptable.”
In a call with Putin on Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel “underlined that the instrumentalization of migrants against the European Union by the Belarusian regime is inhumane and completely unacceptable,” and urged the Russian president to influence the regime in Minsk, a spokesperson for the German government said.
According to the Kremlin’s readout of the call, Putin wants to discuss “the problems that have arisen in direct contacts of representatives of the EU member states with Minsk,” Russian state news agency TASS reported.
As the border crisis unfolds, Poland has so far refused direct help from the EU in confronting the situation, saying it does not need the support of EU border agency Frontex. Morawiecki said Frontex wouldn’t be “a real help,” as it only has fewer than 1,000 troops.
Hans von der Burchard contributed reporting.
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