Fast forward to 2021. lukashenko had "won" the wildly corrupt belarusian presidential election, intensifying the pro-democracy protests and leading to severe worsening of the EU-belarus relations.
As the first difference to the earlier Arctic events, lukashenko took initiative to manufacture an influx of migrants on the Lithuanian and Polish borders by organizing flights from the countries most impacted by the Syrian refugee crisis to Minks, then busing these people to the EU border. 9/13