Border with Russia? There is no border control at all. We have a union state with Belarus. Belarusian citizens can live here, work, get free education and healthcare without any restrictions or special permits they have same rights as Russian citizens. And on topic I don't know what's happening but it was the west first which closed it's airports for Belarusian planes. What's even the point of such sanctions? Officials are not affected by that at all. To punish commercial companies? Ordinary citizens? If anything such sanctions only make authoritarian leaders even more popular(at least among the kind of people which already supported them) and consolidate society against western hypocrisy. I'm in not a supporter of such leaders but the whole European reaction to that incident can be easily turned into propaganda against the west and you know they do have a point. Because there were several similar situations and there were no reaction AT ALL. And I don't live in Belarus but I have impression that Lukashenko is really popular there. Not among youth or some educated people, but among workers and farmers. When other ex-ussr countries seen total collapse of industry and social guaranties factories continued to work. I consume products they produce daily, I even have some clothes made there. Yes it's an authoritarian country but it's not some dystopia. It's a nice clean country with functioning institutions and very nice polite and hardworking people. Maybe it would be better with other kind of government idk. And btw from Russian state perspective Lukashenko is not the best "partner" he is very sneaky and two-faced and often "betrays" Russian state on important issues. And as a Russian taxpayer I don't like much that my taxes would go again to fund his little authoritarian paradise.

You are spreading disinformation here, maybe, unintentionally. I lived for 25 years in Belarus and have a lot of connections in Belarus.

These days Lukashenko is very unpopular in the country. He falsified elections, his people committed a lot of violence against the innocent. He is putting people in prison, denied the entrance to Belarus for the citizens. It is a very bad time for the country now - many people and businesses are leaving the country for Lithuania, Poland, etc.

He did not do any economical reforms either, and most state companies are almost dead and cannot compete on the market. He totally relies on donations from Russia. Thanks to him Belarus is not attractive to investors. IT businesses, his golden goose, are leaving.

> The border between Belarus and Poland is the former border between Soviet Union and Poland, its infrastructure beats whatever Trump wanted to do with the Wall. Crossing it illegally is close to impossible.

Interesting, it mostly runs along arbitrary forest paths etc, not major rivers or mountain ranges - not naturally easy to police.

I once stayed in a cottage in the Bialowieza forest (one of few bits of primeval forest in Europe). The cottage was at a clearing, and the other side of the clearing was in Belarus.

We never got any trouble for it, but it wasn’t rare to have border patrol appear out of nowhere and kindly enquire what you’re doing.