NATO calls it hybrid warfare. Under-sanctions Belarus is getting back at the EU by enticing migrants with tourist visas and cheap flights before encouraging them to embark on a one-way journey to the border. On Monday, the tension escalated several notches with a new scale of seemingly orchestrated movement from Minsk. How did those migrants get there? What are the conditions as they head into a third night in the cold?
Brussels has in the past called out Warsaw for refusing its quota of refugees and refusing the framework of common EU border protection but this time, it's squarely behind Poland and neighbouring Lithuania. Is there a militarised solution to this hybrid warfare? Caught in the middle are of course the migrants, whose goal is mostly to seek asylum in Germany.
And what about Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko? His fight for political survival includes the tactic of what was dubbed in the Soviet era "making mischief". Can the situation escalate further? Is he his own man or, as Poland claims, is Moscow the mastermind? Either way, it's a challenge to Europe. How big a challenge?
Produced by Yann Pusztai, Juliette Laurain and Imen Mellaz.
