Intermin to visit Lithuania’s border with Russia to check security situation

  • 2022-11-07
  • BNS/TBT Staff

VILNIUS – Interior Minister Agne Bilotaite will on Monday visit the Pagegiai Frontier District's Vistytis border checkpoint on the Lithuanian-Russian border to check the security situation.

At the checkpoint, she will be briefed about the present situation and threats at Lithuania’s border with Russia.

Later, she will take a look at the Lithuanian-Russian border at Lake Vistytis and visit a granite column marking the tripoint, a point where three countries – Lithuania, Poland and Russia – meet.

Lithuanian and Polish officials have warned that a recent decision by Russia’s aviation authority to launch flights from the Middle East and North Africa to Russia’s exclave of Kaliningrad, sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland, might lead to a wave of irregular migration similar to what happened last year at the border with Belarus.

The Polish government announced last week that it would build a barrier along its border with Kaliningrad in order to prevent illegal border crossings. Lithuanian politicians and officers do not see it necessary to follow the suit at present.

According to the data from the Interior Ministry, video surveillance systems operated by Lithuanian border guards cover 100 percent of the country’s land border with Russia, i.e. 297 kilometers.

The sea border of 119 kilometers in the Baltic Sea and the Curonian Lagoon is guarded and kept under surveillance using radar and thermal imaging equipment as well as daytime surveillance cameras in cooperation with the Lithuanian Armed Forces.

Approximately 800 officers guard the country’s border with the Russian Federation.