Days after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko threatened to flood Europe with migrants, dozens of mostly Iraqi Kurds started arriving in Lithuania. In a cross-border investigation spanning Lithuania, Belarus and Iraq, EURACTIV's media partner LRT.lt digs into the new migrant smuggling scheme.
Belarusian activists in Lithuania have staged a rally aiming to block traffic heading to and from Belarus via the Medininkai border crossing, in a bid to put pressure on the Belarusian regime to open borders and call for stricter EU sanctions.
Lithuania’s government has banned flights from departing or arriving in the country if they have used, or plan to use, the Belarusian airspace, Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė announced on Monday (24 May).
The Russian foreign ministry has expelled two diplomats from the Lithuanian embassy in Moscow, as well as one employee each from the embassies of Latvia and Estonia.
After it was announced last year that Belarus would get a US ambassador after a 13-year hiatus, the new US ambassador to Minsk Julie Fisher was denied entry and is based currently in Vilnius, from where she spoke to EURACTIV's partner LRT.lt.
After Brussels moved to impose sanctions on China in March, Beijing retaliated by targeting four Lithuanian politicians among more than a dozen European diplomats and officials. Now, despite direct pressure on Lithuanian MPs, Vilnius is planning to recognise as genocide China's repression against Uighurs. EURACTIV's media partner LRT.lt reports.
