In the current situation, Belarus is faing a set of challenges related not only to the political system, ensuring legitimacy, normalizing domestic politics, returning some of the emigrated Belarusians, etc., but also to the problems of choosing a further path of development and developing a new political and economic model in general. At the same time, the Belarusian leadership not only does not demonstrate a desire to take the basic steps without which a successful response to these challenges would be possible, but continues to turn its territory into a source of hybrid threats to the EU.<\/p>\n
To date, the situation with the Belarusian economy has become a crisis, which continues to be determined by negative trends primarily in the Russian market. The current situation in the economy necessitates additional financial resources from external sources, but at this stage, the complication of relations with Russia does not help improve the situation. So far, Belarus has not received any tangible support from Moscow on key issues for it: providing an additional interstate loan, improving the conditions of Russian oil supplies and, accordingly, the operation of Belarusian refineries, financing additional import-substitution projects, and building a second nuclear power plant with Russian funding.<\/p>\n
Against this background, there are attempts to intensify relations with the countries of the \u201cfar arc\u201d, but many of these attempts only emphasize the limited capabilities of the Belarusian regime and its complete dependence on Moscow, while their effectiveness is questionable. In particular, the visit of the delegation of the government of Pakistan to Belarus in April 2025 clearly fits into Russia\u2019s strategy to expand its presence in South Asia, including plans to implement a transport corridor project through Afghanistan. Military-technical cooperation between Pakistan and the RF is very important, and the Belarusian military-industrial complex hopes to play an intermediary role in this.<\/p>\n
In December 2024, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia announced that the Russian authorities were ready to consider \u201cvisa liberalization\u201d with Pakistan and a simplified procedure for Pakistan\u2019s citizens to enter Russia after the parties sign an intergovernmental agreement on readmission. In this context, Belarusian-Pakistani cooperation can play a special role in Moscow\u2019s strategy of putting pressure on the EU, in particular through illegal migration (during the visit to Minsk, agreements were reached on the relocation of almost 150,000 Pakistani workers to Belarus to work at enterprises). Obviously, the implementation of these agreements, in particular the \u201cimportation\u201d and further organization of control over a significant number of immigrants, will create conditions for maintaining the dominant role of the key security agencies of Belarus (the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB), increasing their organizational and financial support, as well as expanding cooperation between the special services of the Russian Federation and Belarus.<\/p>\n
According to Der Spiegel (which cites data from the EU Border Guard Agency Frontex), from January to March 2025, almost 33,600 people illegally crossed the borders of the European Union [1]. This is by about 31 % fewer than in the same period last year. According to these data, the number of refugees on all known routes to the European Union is declining. The largest decrease is recorded on the so-called Balkan route \u2013 by 64 %. Significantly fewer people crossed the Mediterranean Sea: the number of people on the route from North Africa to Spain decreased by 18 %, and on the route to Italy \u2013 by 26 %.<\/p>\n
Against this background, the intensity of attempts to illegally enter the EU from Belarus remains high. On March 31, the Polish Border Guard Service announced that from March 28-30, more than 620 attempts to cross the border by migrants were registered on the border with Belarus. According to the Polish side, the migrants\u2019 actions are becoming increasingly aggressive and are coordinated by representatives of Belarus\u2019 law enforcement agencies, as evidenced by the latters\u2019 presence in special uniforms alongside groups of migrants.<\/p>\n
Probably, if Pakistani immigrants are involved in such activities, the migration crisis on the eastern borders of the EU will again be in the center of attention of the international community, and the main source of threat will be Belarus, not Russia, which can offer its \u201cservices\u201d as an intermediary to resolve a new wave of the migration crisis.<\/p>\n
It should be noted that the situation with the bringing in of Pakistani immigrants to resolve the problem of labor shortages at Belarusian enterprises has caused publicity in the media and a negative reaction in Belarusian society, primarily due to the difficulty of adaptation of immigrants of a foreign culture and religion. The Belarusian leadership responded to the criticism by pointing to the insufficient level of Belarusian labor productivity and low birth rate in the country. In order to prevent panic among the local population, the Belarusian regime has resorted to persecuting active participants in the discussion of this topic on social media.<\/p>\n
Time will tell how realistic the scale of labor immigration from Pakistan to Belarus will be and whether the Belarusian authorities will provide conditions for their work under command-and-control methods.<\/p>\n
For Ukraine, the problem of a new migration crisis caused by the concentration of a significant number of immigrants from the region of military and political instability and their possible settlement near the Ukrainian border, in particular in Brest and Gomel regions, may create potential risks. We should not rule out the possibility of Russia\u2019s using immigrants to destabilize the situation, including sabotage operations on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border.<\/p>\n
In the context of Russia\u2019s hybrid attacks against European countries using the migration crisis under the guise of labor migrants, people with combat experience in guerrilla warfare from Afghanistan and other hot spots may be moved to Belarusian territory to destabilize the situation on the EU\u2019s eastern borders.<\/p>\n
Maria Hutsalo<\/strong>, Reference:<\/strong><\/p>\n [1] https:\/\/www.frontex.europa.eu\/media-centre\/news\/news-release\/eu-external-borders-irregular-crossings-fall-by-a-third-in-q1-2025-k2RWuR<\/u><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Maria Hutsalo<\/p>\n In the current situation, Belarus is faing a set of challenges related not only to the political system, ensuring legitimacy, normalizing domestic politics, returning some of the emigrated Belarusians…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":29515,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[261,260],"tags":[278],"class_list":["post-29513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analitika","category-publikacii","tag-gucalo","wp-image-borders"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["uk","en","ru","fr","ar"],"languages":{"uk":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":true},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":true},"ru":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":true},"fr":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"ar":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"gutentor_comment":0,"yoast_head":"\n
\nexpert, PhD in Political Science<\/p>\n