Photo: ERR
Ukrainian refugees on the Russian border crossing Kunichina Gora on the border with Estonia
People tried to leave Russia, but were reportedly loaded onto trucks and taken away in an unknown direction.
About a thousand Ukrainian refugees have “disappeared” near the Russian border with Estonia. This was reported by the Estonian Minister of the Interior Lauri Läänemets, reports the publication. ERR.
Estonian border guards are watching to see if Russia is trying to send people to the green border strip and push them to cross the border illegally.
“Before there were just over a thousand people waiting at the border, but today they are gone: they were loaded onto trucks and taken away. We do not know where they were taken. Currently there is the Police and Border Guard Office. working to get this information, “Läänemets said.
According to the minister, Estonia is using drones to find out if Russian authorities are sending these people somewhere in the green border area, as Belarus did last year on the border with Lithuania and Latvia.
In recent days, more than a thousand people, mostly Ukrainians, gathered on the Russian side near the southeast border of Estonia, whose entry into Estonia was prevented by the Russian authorities by delaying border procedures. As a result, a queue formed at the southeast border of Estonia, where people waited several days to cross the border. Läänemets acknowledged that Estonia can only speculate on the real reasons for this situation.
Läänemets also said that if Russia masses people to cross the border illegally, Estonia cannot assume that all these people are Ukrainian refugees:
“Of course, everyone else will be included in this crowd, as well as citizens of the Russian Federation, all kinds of agents and other people.”
According to the minister, Estonia has also established contacts with the Ukrainian embassy in order to verify the biographies of the people arriving, namely. find out if they are who they say they are.
As a reminder, the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs proposed introduce a “declaration of allegiance” for the Russians obtaining the citizenship of the country and extending the residence permit. The document aims to question the Russians about their attitude towards the war in Ukraine.
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