Cannot exclude Russian attack on Ukraine linked to Belarus crisis, Lithuania says

BRUSSELS – The West cannot exclude a Russian attack on Ukraine while international attention is focused on the Belarus migration crisis, or that Russia establishes a permanent military presence in Belarus, Lithuania’s foreign minister said on Monday.

“It can go either way,” Gabrielius Landsbergis told reporters in the margins of a meeting with his European Union counterparts. “I would not exclude that as a possibility,” he said, adding that his calculus was made by analysing events and Russian troop movements, rather than any single piece of intelligence.

He also called for the EU to consider sanctions on Minsk airport, rather than international airlines accused of flying in migrants to Minsk and onto the Polish border.