Latvia's Prime Minister Said That Pressure From Belarus Has Increased
- 24.07.2026, 12:00
Putin is behind the attacks carried out by illegal immigrants.
In an exclusive interview with the Europe Today program, Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs stated that Putin’s inner circle is behind the recent increase in the number of illegal immigrants at the border with Belarus. The Kremlin’s goal is to divert public attention from its military defeat in Ukraine, according to the TV channel’s website Euronews.
Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs told Euronews that Russia and Belarus are intensifying their hybrid war against the Baltic state because President Putin needs to divert attention from battlefield losses in Ukraine.
These assessments were prompted by reports from Latvian border guards. In a single day last week, they recorded 111 attempts to cross the border illegally from Belarus. By comparison, in neighboring Lithuania—whose border with Belarus is nearly four times longer—only two such attempts were recorded during the same period. Kulbergs noted that the majority of those detained are young men with criminal records.
“We are being tested,” he said on the morning program *Europe Today*. “Today it’s my country, but tomorrow a similar scenario could affect our neighbors in Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, or Poland. This is a hybrid threat, a military threat. This is exactly how Russia operates,” he added.
Since 2021, Lukashenko has been luring migrants from the Middle East and Africa, who are then transported by bus to the border with Poland and the Baltic states. In response, many countries have strengthened their border defenses, including by erecting fences.
On Wednesday, the Latvian armed forces reported that they had fired a warning shot and used tear gas against migrants attempting to cross the border from Belarus.
When asked why Russia and Belarus might have targeted his country in particular, Kulbergs replied: “Because Putin is losing in Ukraine—it’s that simple. He needs to shift his attention to something else.”
According to reports, the border crisis has prompted some politicians in neighboring Lithuania to consider introducing border controls with Latvia to prevent secondary migration, but the presidents of both countries have firmly rejected this prospect. The volume of secondary migration to Lithuania has risen sharply after Latvia became a target for new waves of migrants.
The protest against Riga coincided with the start of the campaign leading up to Latvia’s parliamentary elections in October, suggesting that this is part of a coordinated effort to destabilize democracy in the region.