Belarus believes it has every reason to "cut corridor" for transit through Lithuania by force of arms
Belarus believes it has "every reason" to aggress against Lithuania to ensure the transit of Belarusian goods.
According to Censor.NET, citing European Pravda, this was stated by the First Deputy State Secretary of the Security Council of Belarus Pavel Muraveika during an "ideological seminar" in Minsk, as noted by the independent Belarusian media Zerkalo.
The Vecherny Minsk newspaper wrote about the speech of the Deputy Head of the Belarusian Security Council in its 24 October issue. It published a compilation article based on the security official's speech about the "situation" around Belarus and how the country manages to develop under sanctions.
Among other things, Muraveika mentioned how Lithuania stopped issuing tourist visas to Belarusians and closed some border crossings, which allegedly led to a collapse in transport movement. The military officer was particularly outraged by the fact that Lithuania "blocked transit from Belarus".
This probably refers to the transit of goods through Lithuania to the Kaliningrad region of Russia via the so-called Suwalki corridor, as well as the transit and transshipment of Belarusian fertilisers in Lithuanian ports. These restrictions were introduced in February 2022, and a year earlier, Lithuania banned the transit and transshipment of oil products from Belarus.
"Lithuania has effectively banned us from moving our goods across the border. According to all international law, such a step is considered economic aggression. From the point of view of banal logic, we have every reason to cut through a corridor that is vital for us by force of arms," said the representative of the Security Council of Belarus.
In his opinion, "in other circumstances" no one in the world would even condemn Belarus for such actions, but now Belarus will probably not risk "breaking through the corridor" due to "unprecedented pressure from the West," Muraveika explained.
The Suwalki corridor is a 100-kilometre-wide section of the Lithuanian-Polish border that borders Russia's Kaliningrad region to the west and Belarus to the east. In the event of a hypothetical war, it would be important for Russia to quickly seize the Suwalki corridor to cut off NATO allies' land access to the Baltic states.
Concerns about the security of the corridor from Lithuania and Poland were raised long before a full-scale invasion. For example, back in 2019, the countries agreed to strengthen the protection of this section of the border.
Also read: Lithuania to issue special passports to Belarusian emigrants legally residing in the country
