On 23 May 2021, Belarusian authorities forcibly diverted a Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius in order to detain opposition activist and journalist Roman Protasevich along with his girlfriend; in response, the European Union imposed stricter sanctions on Belarus. In May 2021, Lukashenko threatened that he will flood the European Union with migrants and drugs as a response to the sanctions. In July 2021, Belarusian authorities launched a hybrid warfare by human trafficking of migrants to the European Union. Lithuanian authorities and top European officials Ursula von der Leyen, Josep Borrell condemned the usage of migrants as a weapon and suggested that Belarus could be subject to further sanctions. In August 2021, Belarusian officials, wearing uniforms, riot shields and helmets, were recorded on camera near the Belarus–Lithuania border pushing and urging the migrants to cross the European Union border. Following the granting of humanitarian visas to an Olympic athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya and her husband, Poland also accused Belarus for organizing a hybrid warfare as the number of migrants crossing the Belarus–Poland border sharply increased multiple times when compared to the 2020 statistics. Illegal migrants numbers also exceeded the previous annual numbers in Latvia.