President of Latvia Edgars Rinkēvičs visited the eastern border of Latvia on 19 August to personally assess the progress with development of border defence infrastructure, implementation of counter-mobility elements and systems, automated border infrastructure and technologies. Visit included meeting with members of the State Border Force and National Armed Forces that focused on necessary changes in the legal framework.
President Rinkēvičs was satisfied with the progress in implementation of border defence infrastructure, as well as counter-mobility elements and systems. “The border infrastructure that we see today is a far cry from what we saw two years ago. I am glad to see the fence on the border with Belarus fully completed. Latvia has begun installing technologies with sensors and video surveillance systems for automated border protection. We must intensify efforts to complete it. The fence is the physical barrier, but it will not work efficiently without technologies and border force, of course,” President said.
State Border Force and National Armed Forces briefed President of Latvia on current situation on the border. Legal framework for strengthening of defence and security on the eastern border must be adopted promptly, underlined President Rinkēvičs. It is vital for securing wider border strip and making counter-mobility infrastructure development easier.
According to President, State Border Force and National Armed Forces have built a close cooperation, which is excellent. “I am happy to see state border force working closely with army. We have to say a big thank you for that to the border force and army staff that are already monitoring and preventing real hybrid attacks,” President of Latvia concluded.
During his visit, President of Latvia Edgars Rinkēvičs went to the temporary storage for counter-mobility elements and systems in Zilupe, which is also the site for the on-going National Armed Force military engineer training Bastions 2025. He visited the border crossing point on the Latvian-Russian border in Terehova to learn more about cooperation between the staff of state border guard, army and customs. President Rinkēvičs also inspected the construction of fence on the Latvian-Russian border and implementation of counter-mobility measures on the intersection between Latvian, Russian and Belarusian border. President then met with Silene Border Protection Unit of the State Border Force and went to now closed Silene Border Crossing Point, as well as visiting Aviation and Special Operations Department.
