The barbed wire fence for the protection of Latvian-Belarusian border is planned to be installed by the middle of November, according to documents presented by the Ministry of the Interior to Saeima’s Public Expenditures and Audit Committee on Tuesday, 12 October.
The total length of the barbed wire fence is 111 km. The first 17 km were supplied on 7 October. 37 km of barbed wire fence is expected to be supplied by 14 October and 36 km – by 22 October. The remaining 21 km of barbed is to be supplied in November. Final installation is planned to be finished by 17 November. The price of barbed wire supplies and installation is EUR 3 757 531.
The plan is to reconstruct Latvia’s external border infrastructure along the Belarusian border by the end of 2023. In total there are plans for reconstruction of the state border area along 172.9 km. This includes installation of 134 km of fence.
The current available funding for the installation of border infrastructure in 2022-2024 along Latvian-Belarusian border is EUR 2 072 400. Reserved funding is EUR 27 833 721.
Deputy chief of Latvian State Border Guard Juris Martukāns said at the meeting of the committee that the temporary fence may be left on the border as a supplementary protection measure for the fence that will be installed as part of the infrastructure project.
Latvian authorities have already installed the temporary fence received from Slovenia. This fence has already assisted with protection of Latvia’s border as no new breaches of the state border have been found along the section of border with the fence, as noted by Martukāns.
As it is known, Latvia’s government declared a state of emergency along the Latvian-Belarusian border in response to increasing numbers of illegal border-crossing attempts. The state of emergency will remain in force in Ludza, Krāslava, Augšdaugava and Daugavpils until 10 November.
Temporary barbed wire fence planned to be installed on Latvian-Belarusian border within a month
