Belarus Threatens West as EU Debates Severe Sanctions
Voice of America
President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus has threatened to retaliate for any European Union sanctions imposed on him for detaining two opposition activists after forcing their plane to land in Minsk earlier this week.
Hours before a scheduled meeting in the Russian seaside resort of Sochi with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, his only major international ally, the Belarusian leader warned he would allow migrants and drugs to pour into western Europe. The 66-year-old said, “We stopped drugs and migrants. Now you will eat them and catch them yourselves.” In a show of support for Lukashenko, Russia has been refusing permission for some European passenger jets to enter its airspace after airlines, following EU guidance, ordered their planes to alter their usual flight paths and bypass Belarus, depriving the Belarusian government of millions of dollars in flyover fees. Austria Thursday condemned Moscow’s decision to cancel the Vienna-Moscow service as “absolutely incomprehensible.”Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. Fire rages following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still picture taken from a video, May 26, 2024. Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. A member of the bomb squad of the Israeli police collects debris after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants struck in the Israeli city of Herzliya on May 26, 2024.
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, right, and Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, left, leave a podium after marking Independence Day in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 26, 2024. Demonstrators with Georgian national and EU flags rally during an opposition protest against a foreign influence bill as they mark their country's Independence Day, in the center of in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 26, 2024.