A group of masked men damaged surveillance infrastructure and removed cameras on the Latvian-Belarusian border, Latvian Interior Minister Jānis Dombrava said on October 6. According to him, the intruders returned to the Belarusian side before a border patrol arrived.
The incident followed an attempted illegal crossing. Dombrava and Latvia’s National Armed Forces said armed men tried to bring a group of about 20 undocumented people in from Belarus. Latvian soldiers stopped the crossing attempt. The escorts, the minister said, remained on Belarusian territory, were armed, threatened the soldiers, and “actively pushed and directed” the group toward Latvia.
Several hours after the confrontation, masked men themselves entered Latvian territory, Dombrava said. They damaged an electrical distribution panel and stole surveillance cameras, then went back to Belarus. By the time Latvian border guards arrived, they were already gone.
The minister called the episode a demonstrative and aggressive provocation and warned that such incidents “could have more serious consequences for Belarus itself.” No independent confirmation of Riga’s account, and no response from Minsk, had been reported in open sources at the time of publication.
In late September, Latvia’s State Border Guard reported deliberate damage to surveillance poles, distribution cabinets, and cables on the eastern border, on sections where an automated surveillance system is being deployed. Border Guard chief Guntis Pujāts linked those actions to an attempt to delay the system’s launch. No official link has been established between the September damage and the October 6 incident.
