Two persons from Belarus illegally entered the territory of Lithuania on Tuesday and cut down two poles on which video surveillance cameras are placed in the Čepkeļi swamp.
The press secretary of the Lithuanian State Border Guard Service Giedrjus Mišutis informed that two persons after illegally entering Lithuania sawed two poles and fled. At the same time, he emphasized that the work of restoring the poles is underway, the border section is being monitored and the cameras are functioning.
Two persons, who were not dressed in uniforms, entered the Varena district of Lithuania near the Čepkeļi swamp, where it is impossible to build a physical fence or a concrete wall due to the natural environmental conditions. On the border of Lithuania and Belarus, it is not possible to create a fence in several sections with a total length of about 150 kilometers.
Mišutis said this is the third incident of its kind this year, where individuals with battery-powered tools are trying to destroy border surveillance infrastructure on the Lithuanian side by cutting down camera poles.
Last year, a total of 467 attempts to physically damage both the surveillance system and the physical fence were registered. This year, the number of such cases exceeds 50.
In connection with what happened on Tuesday, a pre-trial investigation has been launched into illegal crossing of the state border and damage or destruction of property.
A physical fence – a fence or barbed wire – has been established along a 550-kilometer section of the Lithuanian-Belarusian border.
Lithuania and Belarus share a total of 679 kilometers of border, of which about 100 kilometers are crossed by rivers or lakes.
Lithuania decided to create a physical fence supplemented by a video surveillance system after the flow of illegal migrants from Belarus began in 2021. Lithuanian authorities describe it as a hybrid attack carried out by the Minsk regime.
2023-08-23 17:08:40
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