Latvia's frontier with Belarus has not gone a single day without an attempted illegal crossing since late March, according to Radio Svaboda, RFE/RL's Belarusian service. The country's border service ties the sustained pressure to a state-run hybrid campaign, and its chief has named Latvia's support for Ukraine among the reasons the country has become the primary target.

An unbroken run since March

Latvia's State Border Guard has logged migrant crossing attempts from Belarus for 111 consecutive days, a Pozirk analysis of the agency's operational data found. Radio Svaboda reported the tally on 15 July.

Between 25 March and 13 July, officers recorded 7,791 attempts — an average of 70 a day. In winter the traffic was a fraction of that. From 1 January to 24 March, a span of 83 days, the agency counted just 141 attempts, or 1.7 a day. Pozirk calculated a year-to-date total of 7,932, or about 41 daily, while Latvia's State Border Guard listed 7,933.

On 13 July, the entire EU-Belarus frontier saw 42 attempts, 41 of them on the Latvian line and one on the Polish. The day before brought 41, then 87 on 11 July and 103 on 10 July, with Latvia taking the bulk each time. Lithuania has seen no crossing activity for five days.

Across the bloc's Belarus border, neighboring states logged 9,116 attempts since January. Latvia absorbed 87% of them. Lithuania took 9.9%, or 904, and Poland 3.1%, or 280.

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Latvia exposes Belarusian military’s direct role in weaponizing migration

Riga's border chief points to its stance on Ukraine

Latvia is the number-one target in a hybrid war unleashed by the Belarusian authorities, State Border Guard head Guntis Pujāts told Delfi. The situation at the border, he said, presents serious challenges.

Pujāts said the migrant smugglers have grown more aggressive, pushing officers toward harsher detention methods and a need for wider support from the National Armed Forces. Border guards stopped roughly 7,600 people from crossing illegally this year, far more than in the same period of 2025.He said one of the causes of such pressure is Latvia's consistent support for Ukraine and its condemnation of Russian aggression. 

A campaign running since 2021

Neighboring EU states treat the flow as a hybrid attack organized by the regimes in Minsk and Moscow. Lukashenka has repeatedly said Belarusian guards will not stop migrants heading for the bloc through his country.

The crisis began in 2021, when thousands of people from Asian and African countries started crossing from Belarus into Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland in an organized way. It has continued at varying intensity since, and dozens of migrants have died along these borders.

Finland's parliament voted on June 19 to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel landmines, citing growing security concerns from Russia's aggressive posture and the threat it poses to the region, Reuters reported.

The vote aligns Finland with its Baltic allies, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, whose parliaments have already approved similar exits from the treaty.

Defending the decision earlier this week, Finnish President Alexander Stubb said the security reality along Finland's 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) border with Russia had changed dramatically since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to TVP.

"The reality in the endgame is that we have as our neighboring country an aggressive, imperialist state called Russia, which itself is not a member of the Ottawa Treaty and which itself uses landmines ruthlessly," Stubb said.

Russia has widely deployed landmines across Ukrainian territory since launching its invasion in 2022, a tactic condemned by human rights organizations and Western governments.

Finland, which joined NATO in 2023, has significantly ramped up its defense posture amid growing concern over potential Russian provocations. The country closed its border with Russia over a year ago, accusing Moscow of orchestrating a "hybrid operation" by directing asylum seekers toward Finnish territory. Helsinki claims such hybrid tactics have intensified since it joined the alliance.

The Finnish Border Guard completed the first 35 kilometers (22 miles) of a planned 200-kilometer (124-mile) fence along its eastern frontier on May 21. The move came amid growing evidence of Russian military infrastructure expansion near the Finnish border.

Finland is "closely monitoring and assessing Russia's activities and intentions," Finland's Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen told AFP on May 22.

"We have excellent capabilities to observe Russian operations. As a member of the alliance, Finland holds a strong security position."

Russia's Defense Minister Andrei Belousov said in December 2024 that Moscow must be ready for a potential conflict with NATO within the next decade. Western officials have repeatedly warned of the possibility that Moscow could target NATO members in the coming years.

Diplomacy in crisis: G7 letdowns reveal limits to Western solidarity on Ukraine

KANANASKIS, Canada — The Group of Seven (G7) Leaders’ Summit ended on June 17 with no joint statement in support of Ukraine, no commitments to provide desperately needed U.S. weapons, and no meeting between President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. President Donald Trump. The Ukrainian delegation headed into the summit,

The Kyiv IndependentDmytro Basmat