It appears that the dictator of Minsk and his overlord in Moscow are waging a coordinated form of hybrid warfare against western Europe. Such tactics, of course, aren’t new to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko or his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. What’s novel is how unfathomably callous and evil these have become.
In the past, Putin for one has been better known for hybrid warfare involving mixtures of cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns and "little green men” — that is, combatants who are Russian but wearing unmarked uniforms as they infiltrate or invade places like Crimea. This time, Lukashenko, apparently with Putin’s blessing, is using some of the world’s most vulnerable human beings as weapons.
For months, Lukashenko has been flying refugees from various points in the Middle East — Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and beyond — to Belarus, then herding them toward neighboring countries that are members of the European Union and NATO — Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Dropped in dark and clammy forests, these men, women and children find themselves in a no-man’s land, trapped between Belarusian troops and Polish or Baltic ones trying to keep them out. As winter approaches, many will freeze to death.