Baltics to build border defense line, Latvia mulls laying minefields
Estonia to build up to 600 bunkers and firing positions on the Russian border
The Defense Ministers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania said at a press conference in Riga on January 19 that the three countries would build a joint Baltic Defense Line along their borders with Russia and Belarus.
Speaking after the second of their twice-yearly meetings, Estonian Defense Minister Hannu Pevkur, Latvian Defense Minister Andris Sprūds and Lithuania’s Defense Minister Arvydas Anušauskas gave few details of about this project.
However, the ministers indicated that the defense line along and near the border would involve prepositioned ammunition and weapons and prepared defensive positions along the frontier with Russia and Belarus as well as quick reaction units to meet any cross-border aggression.
Later, Estonian media reported that the Baltic Defense Line along Estonia’s border with Russia would involve building 600 bunkers and firing positions. According to the public broadcaster website Err.ee, The 600 bunkers to be installed on Estonia's border with Russia will be single concrete modules designed to withstand a direct hit from an artillery shell. The bunkers to be constructed on the border will look like living quarters inside.
Estonian bunkers with living quarters
"First, there are the living room essentials. They need to offer accommodation, somewhere to store your gear, a heat source and the possibility of electricity," the report quoted Maj. Taavi Moor, commander of the Estonian Defense Forces (EDF) Engineer Battalion. The bunkers will be designed to withstand a hit from a Russian artillery shell.
Estonia has an eastern border exclusively with Russia, while Latvia has a border both with Russia and Belarus to the east. Lithuania has an eastern border only with Belarus, but has a border in the southwest with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.
A HIMARS rocket launch from the system all three Baltics are buying. Photo: US Army
The high defense officials meeting also mentioned the purchase by each of the Baltic countries of the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) which can hit targets up to 300 kilometers inside Russia or Belarus if fired from close to the border.
Latvia’s Defense Minister Sprūds, asked whether Latvia would denounce the Ottawa Convention against anti-personnel mines, said that Latvia’s armed forces will present a report on the matter on January 22, after which the government would formulate its position.
A citizens’ initiative has been started on the ManaBalss/MyVoice platform asking that Latvia denounce the Ottawa Convention so that it could install anti-personnel mine fields along its border.
Sprūds told journalists that Latvia currently possesses anti-tank and anti-personnel mines that it “could use in an emergency”. While deferring a decision on breaking with the land mine treaty, the Latvian defense minister indicated that the country was looking to “countermobility” measures in the short and long term. Countermobility measures include physical obstacles to the movement of enemy troops as well as weapons fire on the enemy.
Estonia’s Defense Minister Pevkur said that land mines “were not a magic tool” and cautioned that abandoning the treaty banning anti-personnel mines would cause concern among the allies of the Baltic countries. He also noted that mines could be a hazard to persons using border area forests for recreational purposes.
Latvia merges public service broadcasters
In legislative action last week, the Saeima voted to merge Latvian Television and Latvian Radio into a single public service broadcaster to be called Latvijas sabiedriskas medijs/Latvian Public Media. The two-stage merger of administrative and financial structures will start on January 1, 2025.
Merging both broadcast services has been discussed since 2009 and a project for merging was prepared in 2013 but failed because of opposition inside both broadcasters and a failure to get sufficient political support. Since then, the nature of broadcasting has also changed, with both TV and radio content available in online archives or live streams. Both radio and TV content as well as written news and features have been available on the joint public broadcasting platform lsm.lv.
In a move to further break ties with what is seen as an aggressor state, the Saeima on January 18 denounced the mutual legal assistance treaty between Latvia and Russia covering in civil, family and criminal matters. "This agreement was concluded to promote cooperation in the field of legal assistance. Like many other bilateral agreements, it is based on mutual trust and confidence. Russia has lost confidence and has proven that it cannot be relied upon. By denouncing this agreement, we are clearly saying: there is no trust," an official press release quoted Rihards Kols, a lawmaker from the opposition National Alliance (NA) and chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Once denounced, the legal assistance treaty will lose force after six months. Lawyers believe ending the treaty will cause some inconvenience to persons or enterprises having legal issues with Russia but point to other means of getting then resolved that are still available.
No more truckin’ in central Riga
In Riga, the city authorities have banned heavy truck transport from several streets in the center to encourage use of newly opened bypass routes. “One of the goals of the municipality is to free the city center from heavy goods vehicles, improving the environmental condition and the quality of the urban environment. Now this is possible, because by opening the Eastern highway to traffic, we can direct freight transport along the bypass road," said Olafs Pulks (New Unity), chairman of the Riga Traffic and Transport Committee told local media.
The end of last week and the weekend also came with commemorations in Riga and elsewhere of the so-called Days of the Barricades” in 1991, when Soviet forces attacked protestors in Lithuania and shot four people in the center of Riga some days later. The main pro-independence and reform movement at the time, the Popular Front, called on people to bring heavy equipment to block access to key locations in the city and thousands responded, sitting in vigils around bonfires.
One of those killed by Soviet gunfire on January 20, 1991, was the Latvian ethnographic documentary filmmaker Andris Slapiņš who recorded his own death, his camera running as nearby cameramen called for help, then arrived to drag him out of the park where he was hit. A few weeks earlier, Slapiņš was in Stockholm and filmed this reporter’s then-five-year-old son reciting a Latvian Christmas poem.