Belarus' state-owned airline has announced it will bar people from Iraq, Syria and Yemen from boarding flights out of Turkey after pressure from Turkish authorities.
Thousands of desperate refugees from the Middle East and North Africa have been ferried to the Belarus-Poland border this week by Lukashenko's security forces, prompting Poland to deploy 15,000 troops along the line.
The EU accuses Lukashenko of luring the migrants to Belarus and the country's Belavia airline has been forced to deny it is involved in trafficking the desperate refugees as part of the 'hybrid war.'
Belavia said citizens of Iraq, Syria and Yemen, would be blocked from flights as of Friday 'in accordance with the decision of competent authorities in Turkey.'
Kremlin-backed tyrant Lukashenko remains defiant in the face of increased sanctions from Brussels, threatening on Thursday to cut off Russian gas supplies to Europe from a major pipeline which runs through Belarus.
Russian nuclear bombers were flying over Belarus for a third day running on Friday as Putin threw his support behind Lukashenko.
Amid the chaos on Europe's doorstep, the White House last night warned Brussels to brace for a Russian invasion of neighbouring Ukraine.
American intelligence sources have briefed their European counterparts of a possible Kremlin military operation in Ukraine's east to annex territory similar to the 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula.
A group of migrants were seen violently clashing with one and other as food supplies were handed out by an aid organisation on Thursday
A toddler is carried by its mother, swaddled in blankets to protect her from the harsh Belarusian November chill at the border
A Belarusian military doctor provides medical care to a migrant at the camp at the Belarus-Polish border in the Grodno region
Kremlin-backed tyrant Lukashenko (pictured at the presidential palace in Minsk on Thursday) remains defiant in the face of increased sanctions from Brussels, threatening on Thursday to cut off Russian gas supplies to Europe from a major pipeline which runs through Belarus
The fears were sparked by a build-up of tens of thousands of Russian troops, tanks and artillery pieces close to the border, with satellite images revealing large camps of vehicles at Yelnya, Bryansk and Kursk.
Ukraine - which has been fighting a proxy-war against Russian-backed separatists in its eastern regions for years - has moved 8,500 more troops to the border in response.
Meanwhile, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have also been warning of the risk of conflict between Belarus - a close ally of Moscow - and Poland amid a migrant crisis on their shared border.
On Thursday, Lukashenko himself warned of the risk of a conflict and accused armed groups in the Donbas region of Ukraine of trying to ship weapons to the migrants on the Polish border in order to spark fighting.
'They are Kurds, and the Kurds are militant,' he said according to Polish newspaper Wyborcza. 'When Poles beat them, cut them, torment them, etc., they become desperate. One rifle, one gun, and armed conflict is ready.'
European countries and the US condemned Belarus Thursday following an emergency meeting at the UN Security Council.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin has urged the EU to open diplomatic talks with Belarus to resolve the situation over some 4,000 migrants camped on the Polish border with Belarus in freezing temperatures.
Poland is refusing to allow the migrants to cross, accusing Minsk of luring them to Belarus to send across the border in revenge for sanctions.
After an emergency meeting at the UN Security Council on the crisis the US and European delegations condemned 'the orchestrated instrumentalization of human beings whose lives and wellbeing have been put in danger for political purposes by Belarus.'
Minsk is aiming at 'destabilizing neighboring countries and the European Union's external border and diverting attention away from its own increasing human rights violations,' they said in a joint statement.
The statement made no mention of Belarus ally Russia, which before the
