Where did the Belarus border crisis stand by 11 November 2021?
A look back at the accusations and emergency measures that marked the migrant crisis on the Belarus–Poland border in the days before 11 November 2021.
What was happening on the eastern edge of the European Union on 11 November 2021? The crisis on the Belarus–Poland border had already prompted sharp accusations and emergency steps in the preceding days.
On 9 November 2021, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for orchestrating the migrant crisis. He said the crisis had its mastermind in Moscow, placing responsibility on the Kremlin rather than treating it solely as a border dispute between Warsaw and Minsk.
The same day, Lithuania announced a state of emergency, the first since its independence. The announcement came as neighbouring Poland saw attacks on its border.
Taken together, the two developments of 9 November 2021 show how the confrontation had widened. A Polish accusation reached as far as Moscow, while a second neighbour of Belarus resorted to a measure it had never used before. The crisis was by then being handled as a matter of regional security and diplomacy, not only of border management.
