Vandalize or we'll beat you: Belarusian border guards are forcing migrants to sabotage

According to the Latvian Prosecutor's Office, Belarusian border guards are forcibly compelling migrants to damage the Latvian border fence and surveillance equipment. In camps near the border, they check who has paid for the illegal crossing, and those who have not settled their debt are beaten and tortured into committing sabotage. According to Latvian authorities, as border security has tightened, such attacks have become increasingly frequent.

Andris Aleksejevs, a prosecutor in the State Protection Division of the Latvian Prosecutor General's Office, spoke about the method on the public television investigative program De facto. According to him, uniformed men regularly appear in the camps operating on the Belarusian side, line up those waiting there, and use photographs to check who has paid the smugglers for the crossing. The rest are given a choice: either damage the Latvian border protection equipment, or be beaten until they agree. The cases uncovered during the investigation point to organized operations. The perpetrators arrive with metal saws, know exactly where and what they need to cut, finish within seconds, and then return to Belarus. According to Aleksejevs, people arriving from distant countries with no knowledge of the area are unlikely to choose the targets and plan the sabotage themselves. The prosecutor's office suspects the involvement of an international human-smuggling network, and considers it a well-founded suspicion that Belarusian border guards are also taking part in organizing illegal migration and in actions against Latvian infrastructure.

According to De facto's report, the journey costs around five thousand dollars per person, usually paid in cryptocurrency. Migrants travel through Russia to Belarus, then wait in camps near the Latvian border to be sent onward. Those who fail to get across can be stranded there for months, at the mercy of those organizing their journey. In July, the Latvian Prosecutor General's Office opened a criminal case over intent to commit serious crimes against the state; as part of this, it is examining the alleged involvement of Belarusian officials. According to Ivars Ruskulis, deputy commander of the Latvian Border Guard, it is precisely because of the effectiveness of the border barrier that the other side's actions are becoming more violent. As crossing becomes harder, the smugglers' income is also at risk, which is why they increasingly attack the equipment hindering their work. This year border facilities—including electrical distribution boxes and surveillance cameras—have already been damaged more than sixty times. Last year, 23 such cases were recorded for the entire year. The violence also directly affects Latvian border guards. In the week before the report, they were pelted with stones from the Belarusian side at least twice, and at the beginning of October a group of ten to twenty people illegally crossed the border while their escorts, who stayed on the other side, made threats and brandished what appeared to be a weapon. The Border Guard's work is assisted daily by one to two hundred soldiers, and it is also cooperating with Europol in the investigation.

For years, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have accused Alexander Lukashenko's regime of deliberately organizing and using migration to put pressure on neighboring EU and NATO member states. In the case now disclosed, Latvian authorities claim that vulnerable migrants are also being used to damage border protection infrastructure: those who cannot pay are assigned a different task. This year the Latvian Border Guard has already prevented more than twelve thousand illegal border-crossing attempts. This already exceeds last year's full-year figure, and by the end of the year the record of 13,863 attempts set in 2023 could also be broken—these figures refer to crossing attempts, so the same person may be counted multiple times. The reinforced border protection operation on the Belarusian section, named Vilkatis, meaning 'Werewolf', has been extended until the end of the year.

Ugar