Estonia has installed gates and barriers at three border crossings with Russia that can close in seconds if necessary and stop both people and vehicles, ERR News reports.
The barriers are located in Narva in the north of the country, and at the Koidula and Luhama border crossings in the south. The work began in July and cost a total of 3.1 million euros.
The Estonian government agreed on additional protection at border crossings soon after Russia allowed about 30 people to leave the country and try to enter the European Union without proper documents in December 2023. A similar incident with a much larger number of people involved occurred at the same time on the Russian-Finnish border. Officials at the time indicated that it was related to the migration crisis provoked by Moscow and Minsk on the Belarusian border with Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
Peter Maran, Head of the Southeast Border Control Unit of the Estonian Police and Border Guard Board (PBA), said that the possibility of a migration crisis can never be completely ruled out, and in such cases,
physical infrastructure helps to respond faster and prevent illegal border crossings.
There have also been several incidents in the past few years when individuals have attempted to illegally cross the border by bypassing the PBA. Recently, a drunk Latvian citizen tried to enter Russia on a moped. Maran told the program “Aktuaalne kaamera”: “It was more like a scene from an action comedy. The vehicle in question was a Muravei three-wheeled moped, and the person who wanted to go to Russia was heavily intoxicated. He saw that the gates and barriers were closing, so he turned around, apparently looking for a hole somewhere in the fence to slip through, and he really did not want to be caught.”
It takes about three seconds for the gates to completely close. Maran added that the main thing is that information is now moving quickly, and the responsible border guard can press a button with a cool head. If it were not for the new system, the Latvian citizen would most likely have ended up in Russia.
Other possible scenarios have also been considered, for example, if an Estonian border guard accidentally remains on the other side of the gate. As the head of the border point pointed out, there are mechanisms to open the gate in such cases so that the personnel themselves do not remain in the territory of a hostile country.
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