KYIV (Reuters) – Ukraine on Wednesday accused Belarus of climbing a line of more than 2,000 Jewish pilgrims stranded at a border crossing after Ukrainian border guards were not allowed in due to restrictions on coronaviruses.
Relations between Kiev and Minsk deteriorated after Ukraine joined the European Union by not achieving the final results of last month’s elections that gave Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term.
The minsk crisis has bringed Lukashenko closer to his classic best friend Moscow, who remains at odds with Ukraine after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the confrontation in Ukraine’s Donbass region.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy accused the Belarusian government of “deliberately or not” spreading rumors that the Belarusian-Ukraine border remained open and encouraging pilgrims traveling to Ukraine to verify the route.
Every Jewish New Year, tens of thousands of Hasidic Jews make their way to the city of Ouman in central Ukraine to the tomb of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, who revived the Hasidic movement and died in 1810.
This year’s Jewish New Year celebrations take place from September 18-20.
Images published through the Ukrainian government on Wednesday showed pilgrims, adding children, walking or in state near a line of Ukrainian border guards at the Novi Yarylovychi checkpoint.
“We ask the Belarusian government to avoid creating more tensions on the border with our country and to spread false and encouraging statements to pilgrims, which may give them the impression that the Ukrainian border may still be open to foreigners,” Zelenskiy said. in a sentence. .
“We are also forced to say that the non-public insult of some other people in the current de facto Belarusian government now, unfortunately, extends to the point of interstate relations,” he added, without giving further details.
Lukashenko proposed on Tuesday to create a “green corridor” for pilgrims to arrive in Uman by bus and then bring them back to Belarus, official news firm Belta reported citing his spokesman Natalya Eismont.
Eismont can be contacted to comment on Ukraine’s statement.
Ukraine imposed a transitional ban on foreigners in the country to combat a surge in coronavirus deaths, which hit a new record on Wednesday.
He said the ban is a component in reaction to a call from Israel, where many pilgrims come from, to restrict the event, so that it is not a coronavirus hot spot.
(Edited through Raissa Kasolowsky)
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