Lithuania has also sent additional forces to the Belarusian border, Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė has said following Poland’s announcement earlier this week of plans to deploy 2,000 additional troops to reinforce security on its eastern border with the neighbouring country.
However, the prime minister says she does not see the need to publicly detail this information, as Poland does.
“We have more intelligence officers working, our institutions are working, and there are certainly much larger forces from the national defence system and law enforcement institutions as well. They are also carrying out exercises and taking other actions together,” Šimonytė said in an interview published by VZ.lt on Friday.
“But I don’t think it is necessary to elaborate, to throw numbers or some other things out, as perhaps our counterparts from the Polish government sometimes do,” the Lithuanian prime minister said.
Lithuania and Poland have taken security enhancement measures after Belarus welcomed fighters from the Russian mercenary group Wagner. Lithuania also plans to close two of its six border checkpoints on its border with Belarus.
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Šimonytė says more closures would require coordination with neighbouring countries.
“The current proposal is, and the government will discuss this soon, to close the checkpoints where only people pass through, not goods, and also empty vehicles, again, not goods,” she said.
“As far as transport is concerned, speaking of freight transportation posts, I am not saying these are conclusive solutions, but I think we will continue monitoring the situation and we might have more of these solutions in the course of time.”
However, she added, any solutions should be coordinated with EU partners, since “what happens when one country makes such decisions is that the other countries immediately suffer the consequences”.
Most of the vehicles crossing the border with Belarus are registered in the EU, she noted.
“This means that we have to realise that this is a complication for some part of EU logistics,” Šimonytė said.
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