Lukashenko denies creating migrant crisis
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has dismissed the accusations that he created and finances the migrant crisis on his country's border with Poland.
"The Americans have said that I finance these refugees. Listen, do I have a sea of cash? Do I not know where to put money in? Here, [put] facts on the table. If I finance, put facts on the table," Lukashenko said in an interview with the Russian magazine Natsionalnaya Oborona (National Defense).
"Put facts on the table [showing that] at least one person from the government, or even a businessman, has financed," he added.
The situation on the Polish-Belarusian border worsened last Monday when it was approached, on the Belarusian side, by several thousand Middle Eastern migrants seeking to get into the European Union. Polish officials called this the highest point of the crisis since it began.
In recent months Poland, Lithuania and Latvia have seen a surge in migrant flows from Belarus. The EU has accused Belarus of deliberating causing chaos on its border with the EU, given that it does not let the migrants, who are from the Middle East and Africa, back in.
The Baltic States accused Belarus of organizing migrant flows, calling it a "hybrid aggression."