The dean of the Journalism department at BSU misconstrued the reasons for sanctions and border closure with Poland

Dean of the Journalism department at BSU, Alexey Belyaev, mentioned the reasons for the closure of most checkpoints on the Polish-Belarusian border in a conversation with Polina Konoga on Alpha Radio and SB TV on January 14, 2025.

"These statements are very strange. <...> They started closing [the borders], imposing sanctions against us alleging that our elections are undemocratic. And now, for some reason, all discussions about reopening the border boil down to Poland supposedly demanding the release of a criminal held in our prison who championed values completely foreign to Belarusians," Belyaev explained.

First closures of the border crossings between the two countries happened in March 2020 due to the coronavirus epidemic, prior to the presidential elections.

On November 9, 2021, Poland closed the Kuznica border crossing citing the escalation of the migrant crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border, which had begun that summer, as the reason. Thousands of people, mainly from the Middle East, attempted to illegally cross the border, heading towards European Union countries.

On February 10, 2023, Bobrovniki–Berestovitsa border crossing point ceased operations. This occurred after the sentencing of Andrzej Poczobut, a political prisoner, journalist, and activist of the Polish minority in Belarus to eight years in prison.

The sanctions introduced in response to repressions against Alexander Lukashenko's opponents and support for Russia's attack on Ukraine did not include the closure or slowing down of border crossings.