The Last Crossing Under Threat: Latvia Contemplates a Total Severance of Its Frontier with Belarus

The government of Latvia will today examine the issue of fully closing the border with Belarus, the republic’s prime minister has declared.

It will be recalled that traffic through the sole remaining border crossing between the two countries was halted at 23:00 on 31 July. The Ministry of the Interior of the Baltic state cited technical reasons for the measure. Yet on the eve of these deliberations the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs observed that appeals to a mere technical failure appear frankly unconvincing, especially in light of the drivers’ own admissions that they had been expressly advised to turn around.