The head of the State Border Guard Service of Lithuania, Rustam Lyubaev, said that the Belarusian border guards deliberately damage the fence on the Lithuanian-Belarusian border and do it "demonstatively", reports Delfi.lt.

"We can say that the physical barrier is being damaged on purpose.

Belarusian border guards do it out of revenge, they do it defiantly even where our systems record it.

However, most of the damage is recorded where there are no surveillance systems," he said.

Lyubaev noticed that the Belarusian official structures do not react to such actions even after the Lithuanian border guards report it.

"When they see that our patrol is driving, the malicious activities stop.

Then the Belarusian border guards or migrants immediately go deep into the Belarusian territory.

We recorded cases of damage caused by Belarusian border guards, and even sent an official notification in this regard.

Either there is no answer, or they answer that it was not possible to find out such a case," said Lyubaev.

According to the Minister of Internal Affairs Agne Bilatajte, a new hybrid attack has been organized against Lithuania."

She noted that if those damaging the fence were caught, sanctions would be applied against them for violating the state border and damaging property.

According to Agna Bilatajte, Lithuania plans to complete the remaining few kilometers of fence on the border with Belarus in September and to equip the entire border with video surveillance systems, reports the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Lithuania.

In total, the project involves the construction of a fence 452.9 km long, a barbed wire fence 356.1 km long, and the renovation of 76.1 km of fence.

More than 50% (362 km out of 679 km) of the Lithuanian-Belarusian border is already monitored by video surveillance systems.

At the beginning of August, Lithuania recorded an increase in the number of illegal migrants from Belarus.

According to the head of the State Border Guard Service of Lithuania, Rustam Lyubaev, a record of 2022 has already been set - no more than 100 people were allowed into Lithuania in one day, and such a number of migrants had not been on the Belarusian-Lithuanian border for a long time.

Lithuanian border guards record about 60-70 attempts of migrants to cross the border illegally every day.