Due to the large influx of migrants, Lithuania will send additional soldiers to guard the border with Belarus, the Minister of the Interior Agne Bilotaite announced on Monday.
“Currently, the maximum number of employees of the Lithuanian Border Guard Service is concentrated on our border, other forces of the internal affairs system are also involved, and today we specifically discussed the additional armed forces. [izmantošanu], “said Bilotaite at a press conference after a meeting of the National Defense Council convened by President Gitan Nauseda to discuss the influx of migrants on the border with Belarus.
However, she did not name a specific number of military personnel to be sent to the border with Belarus.
At the end of last week, it was reported that Lithuania plans to send 260 soldiers to guard the border with Belarus.
“Soldiers have been helping border guards since Saturday, but we agreed that our border guards would be further strengthened by the armed forces, I would not like to detail the figures, because these figures are very sensitive,” said Bilotaite.
The National Defense Council also decided to ask the European Union border guard agency Frontex to send 60 patrols to the Lithuanian border with Belarus, or twice as many as was previously requested.
It has already been reported that Lithuanian officials suspect that the Belarussian regime is deliberately facilitating the flow of migrants across the border. Belarusian authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko, in response to new EU sanctions, said last month that Belarus would no longer protect Europe from illegal immigrants.
In response to the sharp increase in the flow of illegal immigrants across the Belarusian border, the Lithuanian government decided on 2 July to declare a state of emergency. According to the Minister of the Interior, Agne Bilotaite, who has been appointed Head of Emergency Operations, this decision was taken not because the threat level had increased, but because it was easier to make decisions on logistics, funding and other issues.
Lithuania is also preparing to build a fence on the border with Belarus and has started building a barbed wire fence.
The Lithuanian National Defense Council consists of the President, the Prime Minister, the Speaker of the Parliament, the Minister of Defense and the Commander of the Armed Forces. The Council reviews and coordinates the most important issues of national defense and security of Lithuania.
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