Polish PM holds talks in Vilnius on border crisis

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki suggested Russia was directing Belarus' actions in the migrant crisis, and warned that the recent tensions were only the beginning of a longer problem.

Morawiecki said the crisis was an attempt to breach the eastern border of NATO and the European Union. Morawiecki also said Poland was aware that Russian and Belarusian officials had contact with Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. Morawiecki was holding a series of talks in Europe about the pressure of migrants on the European Union’s border with Belarus.

The European Union has accused Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko of using the migrants as pawns to destabilize the bloc in retaliation for its sanctions on his authoritarian regime. Belarus denies engineering the crisis. Poland is pushing the migrants back, saying it is protecting the border for all of Europe. It has received support from the EU, NATO and the U.S.