Latvia Suspects Belarusian Border Guards Of Orchestrating Attacks At The Border
- 27.10.2026, 16:37
According to the investigation, migrants are being forced to damage cameras and electrical equipment.
Officials of the Belarusian Border Guard Service may be involved in organizing illegal migration and damaging Latvia’s related infrastructure, said Andris Aleksejevs , a prosecutor with the country’s General Prosecutor’s Office , in an investigation by the De facto program of the Latvian television company LTV, details of which are provided by the portal LSM.
“In this criminal case, there are reasonable grounds to suspect that officials of the Belarusian border guard are involved in organizing illegal migration and, at the same time, are damaging our infrastructure to facilitate the commission of a crime,” the prosecutor said.
He reported that in July, the Latvian Prosecutor General’s Office opened a criminal case regarding the creation of a criminal organization to commit particularly serious crimes against the Latvian state.
According to the prosecutor’s office, the journey for an illegal migrant costs approximately $5,000, most often paid in cryptocurrency. The route runs through Russia to Belarus and then to camps near the Latvian border. There, migrants wait for the signal to cross—sometimes for several days, sometimes for months.
It is reported that people in uniform regularly visit the camps. They line up the migrants and check photographs to verify whether they have paid for the illegal border crossing.
“If a person hasn’t paid, they have a choice: either they’re sent to damage our infrastructure, or they’re physically harmed or otherwise tortured until they agree to go and damage the infrastructure of the Republic of Latvia,” said Aleksejevs.
According to information gathered by investigators, once they arrive in Latvia, the migrants know exactly which facilities to damage and how to do so. They bring tools with them, including hacksaws for cutting metal, act in a matter of seconds, and then return to Belarus.
It is reported that since the beginning of 2026, the Latvian Border Guard has recorded more than 60 cases of damage to border infrastructure, including electrical distribution cabinets and security cameras. Throughout 2025, 23 such incidents were recorded.