Robin Emmott, Anna Koper

WARSAW (Reuters). – A contingent of troops was strengthened to keep migrants from crossing the border to Poland after they were stranded inside Belarus in frigid weather.

There are hundreds of people who have set up camps at the border. Polish soldiers and razor wire fencing have frequently blocked them from entering the European Union.

Poland and other EU members accuse Belarus for encouraging illegal crossings of the frontier by migrants from Africa, Afghanistan, and Middle East. This is in revenge on sanctions that were imposed upon Minsk because it was accused of human rights abuses.

“It wasn’t a peaceful night. “There were numerous attempts to cross the Polish border,” Mariusz Blaszczak, Polish Defense Minister, told PR1.

RMF Polish Private Radio reported around 200 attempted to break the border on Tuesday afternoon. A second group, of approximately 60 people, tried to do so after midnight.

Blaszczak claimed that everyone who tried crossing the border was detained and that there had been an increase in the number of Polish soldiers at the border to 15,000, from 12.,000.

Three EU diplomats spoke to Reuters late Tuesday, saying that they were close to imposing additional sanctions against Belarus because of the escalating conflict. The bloc is targeting approximately 30 entities and individuals including the Belarusian Foreign Minister.

On Tuesday, the EU accused Alexander Lukashenko, Belarusian president of using “gangster style” tactics during the long-running border standoff in which seven migrants died.

Heiko Maas, Germany’s Acting Foreign Minister said that the photos from Belarusian Border were horrendous on Twitter (NYSE.)

“Mr. Lukashenko…unscrupulously exploits refugees as hostages to his cynical political power play…” However, the European Union is not able to be blackmailed.” He stated that.

Maas claimed that no one in crisis would be left alone by the EU.

Russia supports Lukashenko’s government. They deny engineering the migration crisis.

(Reporitng in Warsaw by Anna Koper and Robin Emmott, in Brussels, Robin Emmott, in Brussels, Kirsti Knolle, in Berlin, Matthias Williams, in Kyiv. Writing by Matthias Williams. Editing by John Stonestreet.