The EU’s stand-off with Belarus is complicating its row with Poland

THE MIGRANTS had nowhere to go. Behind them stood Belarus’s brutal security officers, before them rows of Polish soldiers. Mostly Iraqi Kurds, they had been lured to Minsk, Belarus’s capital, with promises of passage to Germany, then dumped in the forests, told to breach the border fence and beaten if they did not. On November 16th the Belarusians moved hundreds of them to a border crossing. Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus’s dictator, hoped that by provoking violence he could embarrass Poland and divide the EU, which imposed sanctions after he stole an election. When migrants threw stones, the Poles sprayed them with water cannon.