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Estonia installing temporary fence along border with Russia

According to the news agency, work has begun in the northeast and southeast of Estonia

TALLINN, November 20. /TASS/. Estonia’s armed forces alongside police and border guards began the construction of temporary fences along the country’s eastern border.

"Only through real action will we find out what the joint capacity of the Defense Forces and the Police and Border Guard Board is in order to install temporary fences at the border, and what material, technical and human resources are needed for this," Egert Belitsev, Deputy Director General for Border Management of the Police and Border Guard Board, said quoted by BNS news agency as saying.

"By now, the migration pressure on Estonia has not increased, but if that changes, the prompt construction of temporary barriers will be a significant part in preventing mass illegal migration," he said.

According to the news agency, work has begun in the northeast and southeast of Estonia.

On November 17, the Estonian government decided to call up 1,684 reserve soldiers for emergency drills to build temporary barriers along the border. According to Estonian Defense Minister Kalle Laanet, the ministry will install 130 kilometers of a razor wire fence along the country’s eastern border to prevent a hybrid threat.

The migrant crisis escalated dramatically on November 8 at the border of Belarus with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, where migrants have been flocking to since the beginning of 2021. Several thousand people have approached the Polish border from Belarusian territory and are not leaving the border area. Some of them tried to storm into Poland by getting over the barbed wire fence. European Union nations have accused Minsk of deliberate escalation and called for sanctions. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that Western states are to shoulder the blame for the crisis as their actions make people flee from war.