Last week, the Police and Border Guard Board (PPA) detained several groups of migrants in central Tallinn who they said had likely crossed the Belarusian border into Latvia. The groups then attempted to travel onward through Estonia with Finland as a final destination.

Migrants have been crossing the Belarusian border into Latvia, Lithuania and Poland since 2021, in what European officials say is a manufactured hybrid attack orchestrated by the Belarusian regime. The issues started after the EU sanctioned Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko.

Migrants cross the border and then try to travel onto western or northern Europe. Last year, Germany and Poland introduced checks on their borders in an attempt to stop people smugglers. Over the past year, several drivers transporting migrants have been stopped at the Polish-Lithuanian border, and now the flow has redirected northwards, the PPA said on Wednesday.

The Latvian border guard has prevented more than 8,000 attempts to cross its eastern border this year, public broadcaster LSM reported. The border guard has said the migrants are becoming more aggressive. Estonia and Lithuania have already sent several rotations of police and border guard officials to assist their Latvian counterparts.

Ladders, bolt cutters and tunnels

On Tuesday, the Minister of Interior Igor Taro (Eesti 200) and Police and Border Guard Board (PPA) Director General Egert Belitšev held a joint press conference to brief the public and media about the situation.

Taro reiterated that the migration crisis is being driven by Belarus, which, at Russia's instigation, is sending migrants into the Baltic states. The politician said video evidence proves that Minsk's actions are deliberate.

"Knowing how things work in the border zone in Russia and Belarus, it can be said quite certainly that no one can just wander into the border zone in these countries. In these countries, there is proper control many kilometres before the border. In Belarus, state structures are definitely involved," Taro said.

"There is also video evidence showing 'certain individuals' – presumably Belarusian border guards – directing migrants towards the border. Sometimes they even help destroy border infrastructure," he told the assembled media.

Migrants caught by the security services have often been carrying items that would be unusual for an ordinary tourist, he said: "Looking at the tools migrants carry with them, indeed, no one goes on a trip with a long ladder, large pliers, or an electric angle grinder. Both Lithuanian and Latvian border guards have confiscated such items."

The infrastructure on the Latvia-Belarus border is the weakest in the Baltic states and migrants found in Estonia have usually crossed into Europe this way, he explained.

But the tactics of the Belarusian border guards and migrants have also changed over time. Over the past week, several tunnels dug under the Belarus-Lithuanian border have been discovered. A similar structure was found by the border guards in Poland under the Belarusian-Polish border last winter.

"When we look inside these tunnels, we see very well-designed and carefully thought-out engineering solutions. A great deal of timber has been used to support the tunnels. They are not very large, but the amount of timber needed to reinforce one such tunnel is still quite significant," Taro said, explaining that this is not something a single migrant arriving from Afghanistan or Somalia could accomplish alone.

The minister said he does not support closing borders within the Schengen area to keep the migrants out because it would be ineffective. "Internal border checks or closures in the southern [European] countries have shown that migrants simply start looking for other routes of entry," Taro said.

The minister said Estonia's goal is to close the migration routes and make it unequivocally clear to illegal border crossers that heading towards Estonia is not worth it and that for an illegal border crosser, the journey ends where it began.

Migrants redirected northwards

The focus of the hybrid war has now shifted because checks have been introduced on the Poland-Lithuania and Poland-Germany borders, the PPA's Belitšev said.

He told the press conference that 63 migrants were caught in Estonia this week and 102 so far this year. Last year, the total number was 39.

The majority of migrants have been stopped in the Tallinn area, either in various hotels, at the port, or in the city center while making their way to catch a ferry to Finland.

The arrivals place an extra burden on the court system and local authorities, not only on the PPA, Belitšev explained.

"Catching such a number of people significantly affects court proceedings, as a court's permission is needed for detention. It also affects the availability of interpreters. It also has an impact on local governments because among the arrivals are people who claim to be minors. This means that in their case, the local government must act as a guardian to carry out the necessary procedures," the police official said, explaining that this is therefore a nationwide operation.

The situation is unlikely to change in the near future.

"At this point, we can predict that the pressure will continue at least as long as favourable weather conditions persist. It will certainly continue through the end of summer, and we can also expect pressure on Latvia to continue in early autumn," he said.

However, once the weather deteriorates in October and November, Belitšev said the pressure can be expected to ease.

"This means that we in Estonia must also be prepared for the continued arrival of illegal border crossers. We must detain them, block their journey, and thereby send a message to the adversary that we cannot be so easily influenced and defeated," the police chief said.

Taro added that Latvia will take back all persons detained in Estonia who are known to have entered the European Union via the Belarus-Latvia border.

60–70 "preventions" per day

Speaking to ERR's evening news show "Aktuaalne kaamera," Head of Latvia's Border Control and Immigration Control Service, Lt. Col. Vadims Grickovs, said the agency had stopped almost 9,000 attempts to cross the border this year.

He estimated that the record number of 14,000 attempts seen in 2023 would be beaten this year.

Grickovs said the number ranges from "60, 70 preventions" per day to "sometimes more than 100." The highest this year has been "more than 200."

"A lot of migrants try to go to Estonia from detention centers [in Latvia], also. They have refugee documents, and they try to go there to go to Finland," he said, adding that he does not think Estonia is their planned final destination.

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