Nine Lithuanian border guards will deploy to Latvia in July to help secure the frontier with Belarus, the State Border Guard Service (VSAT) announced on Tuesday.
Latvia is currently facing significant pressure from illegal migration, with secondary migration flows through the country increasing more than fourfold this year.Lithuanian officers will conduct border surveillance, assist in preventing irregular crossings and perform other security tasks in high-risk sectors.The mission includes personnel from the Pagėgiai and Coast Guard border districts, including two dog handlers with service dogs.The team is scheduled to work along the Latvian-Belarusian border for two weeks.Lithuanian border guards previously provided similar support to Latvia between 2023 and 2025. This year, approximately 6,600 migrants have been detained, pushed back to Belarus or prevented from crossing the Latvian border.In Lithuania, there were more than 1,600 attempts to enter the country irregularly from Belarus, compared with 1,002 the previous year.Since the migration crisis began in 2021, Lithuanian border guards have prevented more than 25,000 people from entering the country illegally..The influx of migrants into eastern European Union member states from Belarus began in 2021, with Western countries accusing Minsk of orchestrating the crisis.
