VILNIUS, Nay 22. /TASS/. The Estonian authorities have decided to build a fence and a detour around the area bordering Russia, Estonia’s ERR state radio station reported.

According to ERR, Tallinn has decided to expand the work on the establishment of the Eastern border in the area called Saatse Boot (a piece of the Russian territory bordering the Estonian Voru County - TASS) by installing a fence and a detour. Earlier, plans were announced on exchanging the borderlands of the same area in case of ratification of the agreement on borders with Russia. However, the country’s authorities decided that such an exchange is impossible given the current circumstances. "We all understand that we are not going to exchange any land with Russia. So, we need to build this fence. The government will have to allocate funds for this. <...> It is about €4 mln, 2.6 mln of which will be spent on the roads. The transport authority should begin building it," the website quoted Estonian Interior Minister Lauri Laanemets as saying.

On May 17, Laanemets said that Estonia was going to build its facilities on the lands that were planned to have been exchanged within the border agreement with Russia. According to him, the country’s government decided to launch the "engineering and building of the border."

Saatse Boot is a part of the Pechorsky District of the Pskov Region which runs into Estonian territory. Estonia previously made plans to exchange it for an equal plot of forest land within the 2014’s agreement on borders. However, this agreement has not been ratified because of Tallinn's intention to unilaterally add into it a mention of the Treaty of Tartu, which would expand its possibilities for territorial claims in the future.