Lithuanian official warns Belarusian border officers against trespassing

August 30, BPN. Belarusian officers have damaged the fence at the Lithuanian-Belarusian border, Lithuanian president’s aide Kestutis Budrys told Lithuania’s Ziniu radijas describing the incidents as a dangerous provocation.

“One thing is to bring migrants to the border and push them over, and a completely different thing is what we are witnessing right now, the destruction of the fence,” Delfi quoted the official as saying.

According to Budrys, it puts Lithuania in “a very dangerous position” because Belarusian officials are “sent to another country to damage the property and means of protection.”

Earlier, Rustam Lubayev of the Lithuanian State Border Guard Service sounded alarm over attempts by Belarusian border guards to damage the fence on Lithuanian territory. So far, Lithuanian border guards have not reported any arrests.

On August 29, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė said that Lithuania will continue to turn illegal migrants away at the border, even though Vilnius may have to pass legislation to make sure the approach is consistent with international regulation after the state of emergency is lifted.

Since August 2021, Lithuanian border guards thwarted 13,300 attempts by migrants to enter Lithuania from Belarus illegally.

Last week, Lithuania completed the border fence project in response to the migration crisis at the Belarusian-EU border that dates back to the spring of 2021. It escalated on November 8, 2021, when thousands of migrants set up a camp near the Polish border. The Baltic states and Poland accused Belarusian authorities of creating the trouble at the border, while the latter blamed it on the West.

Migration figures had dropped significantly by the time Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, but have risen more recently.