2023-08-16 18:28:40
The threat from the Wagners, now deployed in Belarus, has again prompted drastic measures in neighboring countries. This time it was Lithuania, a member country of NATO and the European Union, which approved this Wednesday the decision to temporarily close two border posts with Russia’s ally country as of this Friday, August 18.
According to the Lithuanian channel LRT, the decision is aimed at adequately responding to changes in the geopolitical situation and threats to national security, as well as preventing the smuggling of goods.
“This decision is a preventive measure aimed at controlling threats to national security and possible provocations at the border,” said the Lithuanian Interior Minister, Agne Bilotaite, in statements collected by the EFE news agency.
It should be remembered that there is one border crossing between Poland and Belarus, two on the Latvian border and six on the Lithuanian border.
Likewise, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has assured that Lithuania, as well as neighboring Latvia and Poland, may have to close the border with Belarus if the security situation becomes extremely complicated due to the arrival of the Wagner mercenary group in Belarus. Still, the Lithuanian president insisted that this would be the last resort.
According to the Lithuanian head of the Interior, the Baltic countries and Poland are discussing the possibility of a total closure of the borders with Belarus, the final details of which will be agreed at the end of this month in Warsaw. The talks are about a “regional solution,” she said.
“I had a conversation with the Polish interior minister a week ago. We have agreed that we are currently coordinating at the technical level the technical steps, the algorithms, what it would be like if that regional solution was adopted, if the Baltic states and Poland did it at the same time. “, declared Bilotaite, as reported by LRT.
“I want to assure you that we are working on it at the technical level and at the political level: there is a meeting scheduled for August 28 in Warsaw, at which the ministers of the Baltic States and Poland will be present, and we will put the finishing touches on how it should be. the so-called synchronous system,” he said.
The EFE agency recalls that the information about the presence and activities of the Wagner group in Belarus are contradictory, although the Lithuanian State Border Guard Service estimates that the number of Wagner mercenaries may be around 4,500.
The announcement of the closure of two Lithuanian border crossings came as permits for its border guard were canceled in Latvia and troops were reinforced on its border with Belarus after detecting an increase in irregular border crossings.
After the failed mutiny at the end of June by the leader of the Wagners, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart, Aleksander Lukashenko, agreed that the mercenaries would go into “exile” in Belarus. Since then, neighboring countries have increased protection and strengthened their borders.
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