VITEBSK, 20 May (BelTA) – An integrated system to guard the Belarusian-Latvian border is being deployed, BelTA learned from Vladislav Bruyev, chief of the Polotsk border guard unit of the Belarusian border service, during a press conference on 20 May.
According to the source, new engineering systems are being deployed in the border sections near the border checkpoints Urbany in Braslav District and Grigorovshchina in Verkhnedvinsk District. “It will be an integrated board guard system. We are now getting the land plots. The junction with the Russian Federation and Latvia will be covered, too, by the border guard stations Plyusy, Bigosovo, and Druya,” explained Vladislav Bruyev.
The integrated border guard system will comprise several components that complement each other to securely protect the Belarusian border from unlawful trespassers. The components vary from a fence fitted with contact sensors to video cameras. Such components have already been deployed in the Smorgon border guard unit, the Gomel border guard unit, and the Brest border guard unit as well as along the Ukrainian border.
The official noted that the situation in the Polotsk border guard unit's responsibility area is calm since border traffic is smaller there than, for instance, border traffic in the areas controlled by the Grodno and Brest border guard units. Since 1 January 2016 the Polotsk border guard unit has apprehended 360 people from 16 countries for violating Belarusian border regulations. Of them 12 were identified as border trespassers. In 2015 the number was 250, including 12 citizens of Belarus, Lithuania, and Latvia, who tried to cross the border outside designated border checkpoints. The other people were illegal migrants, who tried to cross the border in groups and families as a rule. “Illegal migrants from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East use Belarus as a transit country for entering Western Europe. 2015 saw a noticeable increase in attempts to cross the border — five times up from 2014. The Polotsk border guard unit apprehended 205 illegal migrants from Vietnam, Georgia, Afghanistan, and Iraq as well as 49 accomplices. Those are primarily citizens of Russia,” added Vladislav Bruyev.
Apart from illegal migration in 2015 the border guard service unit stopped 47 attempts to smuggle over Br4.5 billion worth of material assets across the border. Most of the violations were of local nature: violations of the regulations on staying near the border on the part of foreigners and Belarusians.
