From August 2022 to the end of January 2023, Latvia closed 36.1 km of the border with Belarus with a fence, reports Delfi with reference to the data of the state real estate company VNĪ.

According to the plan of the Latvian authorities, the finished fence will stretch for 173 km.

The first phase involves the construction of a fence on a section 85.8 km long, the work was planned to be completed by this spring.

The deadline for erecting the fence on the 63.9 km section as part of the second phase is the beginning of spring 2024.

Now the technical specification for the third phase of construction is being developed.

Lithuania finished erecting a physical barrier on the border with Belarus as one of the measures to overcome the migrant crisis at the end of August, and Poland at the beginning of October 2022.

The migration crisis on the border between Belarus and the EU countries began in the spring of 2021.

At first, Lithuania experienced a multiple increase in the number of illegal migrants.

After Vilnius decided not to detain migrants, but to return them to Belarus, the flow of migrants was reoriented to Poland, and then to Latvia.

Before the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, migration flows decreased significantly, but after that they increased again.

The leadership of the Baltic states and Poland assigns the responsibility for the migration crisis at the border to the Belarusian authorities, who in response call the cause of the crisis the actions of the West in the countries from which the migrants arrive.

Migrant crisis - 2021. Basic

  • In July 2021, Alexander Lukashenko said that due to sanctions, Belarus will no longer curb illegal migration to EU countries.

    First of all, large flows of migrants went to Lithuania, as of September - more than 4.2 thousand people from Asian and African countries.

    Then Latvia and Poland felt the tension on their borders.

  • Responding to the crisis, Lithuania and Poland started building a wall on the border with Belarus.

  • The governments of Lithuania, and then Latvia and Poland, in the summer of 2021 made the legislation on illegal crossing of the state border significantly stricter, and also sent reinforcements from military units to the border areas with Belarus.

    Lukashenka was accused of facilitating illegal migration to EU countries.

  • Migrants in refugee camps in Lithuania repeatedly staged riots and tried to escape.

  • Since September, the Polish authorities have started detaining and deporting people who help migrants cross the border illegally.

    Among them are citizens of Poland, and citizens of Belarus, Asian countries, including some persons who have a residence permit in the countries of the European Union.

  • Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki expressed confidence that the scenario of "hybrid aggression" against the European Union was not developed by Minsk independently, but in close cooperation with Moscow.

  • On September 27, Stanislaw Zharin, the spokesman for the coordinator of Poland's special services, said that 20% of detained migrants have ties to Russia, as evidenced by the evidence found.

    The Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration Mariusz Kaminski said that Belarusian border guards give psychotropic drugs to migrants, including children.

  • On September 30, PARE categorically condemned the practice of returning migrants "to a third country where they cannot be guaranteed international protection", and reminded Latvia, Lithuania and Poland of the ban on collective expulsion of foreigners.

  • On October 8, Warsaw declared that it interprets the behavior of the Belarusian side as "aggressive actions against Poland".

    A number of video evidences appeared that Belarusian border guards not only do not stop migrants, but also actively help them cross the Polish border illegally.

  • Since the beginning of the migration crisis, at least 9 people have died on the borders of Belarus with Poland and Lithuania.

  • On the morning of November 8, on the Belarusian side of the border, a large column of several hundred migrants was noticed, who, accompanied by armed security forces, moved to the barbed wire on the border with Poland, trying to cross the border.

    According to various estimates, their number was from 2 to 4 thousand people.

    Many received visas at the Belarusian diplomatic mission in Ankara, Turkish airlines participate in the transfer of migrants to Belarus.

  • In the following days, the migrants, with the assistance of the Belarusian security forces, became a camp on the border strip.

    Kurd from Iraq Rebaz Najm Hama Said told Svaboda that the Belarusian police is helping to cut trees for bonfires on Belarusian territory.

    Some groups managed to break into Polish territory, but the military detained all violators.

  • On November 10, MEP Radoslav Sikorski said that the border crisis was initiated with the support of Moscow, and Lukashenka should be recognized as a terrorist and handed over to the International Tribunal.

    A number of other European politicians also expressed their confidence that Putin, with the help of Lukashenka, is loosing Europe, calls were heard for the European Union to act actively, and not to wait.

  • On November 11, Russian Tu-22M3 bombers began patrolling the borders of the Belarusian airspace.

    They belong to the Russian Aerospace Forces.

  • On November 11, the German Federal Police stated that more than a thousand migrants who used Belarus as a transit country entered the country in the first days of November alone.

  • Since August, Polish border guards have stopped more than 33,000 attempts to illegally cross the border from Belarus, compared to 88 last year.

  • On November 15, more than 3,000 migrants gathered at the Belarusian border crossing "Bruzhga" in front of the Polish border line, strengthened by temporary barricades and ranks of the Polish military.

  • According to Lukashenka's press secretary Natalya Eismant, there are a total of about 7,000 migrants in Belarus who hope to get to Germany.

  • On November 22, Berlin refused to accept about 2,000 people from the Middle East who arrived in Belarus after the Lukashenka regime organized the migrant crisis.

  • On November 25, migrants held a protest at the border, declaring that they do not want to return to their countries.

  • About 4,500 migrants left Belarus on more than ten evacuation flights to Iraq and Syria in November-December.

  • At the beginning of 2022, the terms of construction of fences on the border with Belarus became known.

    Poland noted that the fence will be completed by the end of June, and Lithuania by autumn.