The European Union is close to imposing more sanctions on Belarus, targeting some 30 individuals and entities including the foreign minister and Belarusian airline Belavia, with approval as early as next week, three EU diplomats said.
The EU and NATO accuse President Alexander Lukashenko of using migrants as a weapon to pressure the West by sending people fleeing the Middle East to Minsk and then onto the borders of Poland and the Baltic states.
The new round of sanctions is set to target Belarusian officials that the EU says have organised the migrant arrivals in revenge for sanctions on Minsk over human rights abuses.
On Wednesday, in a crucial step, the EU’s 27 ambassadors are set to formally agree that the swelling numbers of migrants along Belarus’ border with Poland amount to “hybrid warfare” and can serve as a legal basis on which to build sanctions.
Minsk denies any such operations and rejects all Western accusations of wrongdoing. Sanctions on senior officials have so far not been effective in weakening the rule of Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994 and is a close ally of Moscow.
