Final stage of Belarusian border service exercise over in Grodno Oblast

MINSK, 12 August (BelTA) – The third and final stage of a complex tactical exercise for the Grodno branch of the Belarusian border service took place in the small border traffic checkpoint Porechye on 12 August, representatives of the State Border Committee of Belarus told BelTA.

Top officers of the State Border Committee of Belarus, commanding officers of border service units, President’s Aide for Grodno Oblast Yuri Karayev, Emergencies Minister Vadim Sinyavsky, Internal Affairs Minister Ivan Kubrakov, and Deputy Internal Affairs Minister, Commander of the Internal Troops Nikolai Karpenkov watched the exercise.

During the third stage of the exercise the troops practiced localizing a conflict situation at a border checkpoint: they had to suppress an attempt of a vehicle to break across the border and an attempt to capture a hostage.

The following scenario was used for the third stage of the exercise. Several cars on the way out of the Republic of Belarus came to the border checkpoint. A service dog sniffing around the first car found traces of explosives. The car’s driver attempted to flee across the border then. The border service personnel used special hardware to stop the car but, armed with a pistol, the driver captured a hostage and demanded he must be allowed to cross the border. Meanwhile, passengers of the cars inside the border checkpoint area organized a rally to protest against actions of the border service personnel.

The border service personnel and customs service officers followed a conflict situation localization plan. Reserve units of the Grodno branch of the border service came to render aid to the border checkpoint together with support units (the border service special operations unit OSAM, representatives of the Grodno Oblast Police Department, the Grodno Oblast branch of the State Security Committee, the Emergencies Ministry). Military personnel of unit No.5522 of the internal troops of the Internal Affairs Ministry acted as a bomb disposal squad.

The team effort put a stop to the illegal actions.

Summing up results of the exercise, Chairman of the State Border Committee of Belarus Anatoly Lappo noted that instead of an artificial situation they had recreated a situation that matches what is going on at the border right now or may happen in the future. “We saw how people on the edge act, tired or not, their moral and psychological state. I would like to thank the reservists and the entire personnel. The workload was extreme but what’s important is that you’ve ensured the security of the Union State border and the fulfillment of our allied commitments. I can say that we have forces and assets assigned by the state and the president and we’ve fulfilled our mission. As a commanding officer I can say that participants of the exercise did great,” he stated.