Masked and armed men attempted to cross into Latvia from Belarus alongside 20 undocumented migrants on Monday. Later, masked men managed to enter Latvia, destroying an electrical box and stealing surveillance cameras before returning to Belarus – an act of sabotage orchestrated by the country, according to Latvian officials. It was not clear if the second incident involved the same masked men as the first.
Since 2021, Belarus, Russia’s ally, has used migration as a tool to destabilise NATO’s eastern flank. It shares borders with Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia – the latter considered Europe’s weakest link. The situation in Latvia has been deteriorating since May of this year,” Bartosz Chmielewski, Baltics expert from the Poland-based Centre for Eastern Studies told Al Jazeera.
According to Olevs Nikers, the Latvian president of the Baltic Security Foundation, “A Ceuta-style surge is physically possible, and we should plan for it.” He was referring to the recent crossing of tens of thousands of people from Morocco to Spain. It creates exhaustion, budget pressure and friction between allies. Poland’s renewed controls on its border with Lithuania are already an example of this.” He noted that Lithuania’s border with Belarus is four times longer than Latvia’s 173km (107 miles), yet pressure has been concentrated in Latvia.
Any migration pressure from Belarus may cause bureaucratic chaos. Latvia, with a population of 1.8 million, would struggle with the reception, processing and providing medical aid to potential asylum seekers, he said. According to the Polish Border Guard, in 2021, almost 40,000 people tried to cross the border from Belarus.
Thousands more crossings of undocumented people were never recorded. Before Russia’s war in Ukraine began in 2022, Belarus built a system – including travel agencies, plane connections and visa programmes – encouraging migrants seeking a better life to cross into the European Union from the east. The scheme targeted people from the Global South, or Latin America, Africa and much of Asia.
According to experts, the system has since been dismantled, but Belarus is still pressing migration when it can. Out of all of NATO’s eastern flank countries, Latvia seems the least prepared for provocations coming from the east. Now it finds itself in the spotlight, partly because it is unprepared, its border infrastructure is inadequate, and the resources of the border guard – even with military support – are dwindling,” Chmielewski said.
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