Did Belarus recently send a group of refugees to its border with Poland as part of an effort to destabilize the country's security? No, that's not true: The video was taken during the migration crisis in 2021 at the Kuznica-Bruzgi border crossing between Belarus and Poland. Poland's Defense Ministry initially published the video of the border incident on Twitter on November 8, 2021, and reposted the same on September 24, 2023, on "X" (formerly Twitter) with the caption (translated from Polish by Lead Stories staff):
Attacks on the Polish border, carried out by Belarus, were intended to destabilize the situation in Poland and threaten the security of Poles.
The claim reappeared in a TikTok video (archived here) where it was published by ua_newsua on September 25, 2023. The text under the video (translated from Russian by Lead Stories staff) reads:
Belarus brought migrants to the Polish border again #Belarus#Migrants#PolishBorder#Migration#Geopolitics#Poland#Illegalaliens
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Thu Sep 28 07:50:33 2023 UTC)
The migration crisis between Belarus and European Union (EU) countries began in the Summer of 2021 when thousands of migrants and refugees were stranded on its borders with the EU. T
Human Rights Watch accused Belarusian authorities of "orchestrating a humanitarian crisis by facilitating tourist visas to thousands of migrants, mainly from the Middle East, to encourage them to travel to the European Union borders." The EU imposed sanctions on Belarus for its actions on the border. Belarusian authorities denied involvement in deliberately staging the migrant border crisis and encouraging migrant to trespass the border.
