On Wednesday, June 25, the Cabinet of Ministers (CM) took note of the Ministry of Interior's informative report "On the Progress of Permanent Infrastructure Construction on the State's External Land Border and Ensuring Construction in Unfinished Sections."
This report reflects the progress of external land border infrastructure construction along the Latvia-Belarus and Latvia-Russia borders as of May 1, 2025. It also provides an overview of the results of procurements organized to ensure infrastructure construction in unfinished sections of the Latvia-Russia external land border, as well as the amount of funding required for this purpose.
To ensure the construction of necessary infrastructure for the state's external land border protection along a 173 km stretch of the Latvia-Belarus border, the full 144.47 km of fence construction on the Latvia-Belarus border was already completed in July of last year. In 2023, it was built in land sections (112 km), and in 2024, the fence construction was completed in the remaining section along public waters.
Similarly, 1.75 km of pontoon patrol tracks and 27.19 km of boardwalk patrol tracks have been built to the full planned extent. The final stage currently involves the construction of patrol tracks with a total length of 119.8 km (all road layers have been built for 116.54 km to date), intended for patrolling with light vehicles. Currently, patrol track construction is sufficiently advanced for the State Border Guard to patrol the entire length of the sections. The goal is to complete all infrastructure construction by the end of June 2025, despite very challenging meteorological conditions and precipitation levels.
This year, six towers and access roads built in 2024 for monitoring the Latvia-Belarus border in the Daugava section were put into operation. To ensure full functionality of the towers, their further equipping with the necessary technological equipment will be carried out by VAS "Latvian State Radio and and Television Centre" (LVRTC).
These solutions significantly improve border guards' work by allowing access to and control of the border zone, as well as timely identification of illegal state border crossings and other violations in the state border strip.
Additionally, at the end of May, construction began on the final sections of the Latvia-Belarus border construction, building a 16.7 km patrol track along the Daugava and bypass roads near Lake Riču. The construction work also plans for the installation of 5 bridges to ensure border guard movement along the entire section, including across small rivers, streams, and ravines. Construction work is planned to be completed by January 2026.
Under the leadership of VNĪ (State Real Estate), work on the additional fence construction of the Latvia-Russia border actively continues. Of the total planned 179.26 km, approximately 155.92 km of border fence has been built to date. The remaining fence in particularly complex, hard-to-access areas is planned to be built by the end of October this year, as stipulated by the Cabinet of Ministers' order. In parallel, SIA "Igate" is carrying out defect rectification on the previously built border fence. This work is also planned to be completed by the end of October this year.
VAS "Latvian State Radio and and Television Centre" (LVRTC) has been delegated to organize the construction of perimeter surveillance, or technological infrastructure, on the external land border. The entire external land border is expected to be equipped with technological infrastructure by the end of 2026.
For the equipping of the border with technological infrastructure on the Latvia-Belarus state border, design work has been completed, and construction work is underway on an approximately 82 km section out of a total of 173 km on the Latvia-Belarus border section.
Similarly, the Latvia-Russia state external land border is also planned to be equipped with technological infrastructure. Design work has been completed in two phases, and construction work for the installation of technological infrastructure has begun on an 82 km stretch. For the remaining 201 km of technological infrastructure construction, design work is ongoing, and construction work is planned to begin at the end of this year.
For the construction of technological infrastructure along the Latvia-Belarus state external land border, funding of 95,958,631 euros (71,968,974 euros from the Fund's financing and 23,989,657 euros in national co-financing) has been allocated within the framework of the Financial Support Instrument for Border Management and Visa Policy (Fund) 2021-2027 planning period project "Automated Border Surveillance Infrastructure." From the aforementioned source, funding has also been supported for one construction phase on the Latvia-Russia border, with 17,017,305.80 euros allocated for this purpose (the Fund's financing portion).
Today, the government also decided to allow VNĪ to incur financial obligations for 2025-2027 for infrastructure construction in priority sections of 41.26 km on the Latvia-Russia border where it had not been previously built, for a total sum of 18,031,015 euros.
The new phase of work also includes the construction of patrol tracks along Lake Peiteļu, which is a particularly wet, swampy area, as well as the construction of a tower and access road near Lake Zilezers and patrol tracks. Also foreseen is a boat and cutter launching site with a pontoon pier, as well as the construction of a railway crossing and an access road near it at the Opoļi border guard division.
The government supported the proposals provided in the informative report for reallocating funding between measures to ensure the construction of external land border protection infrastructure in priority sections where it had not been previously built. This involves redirecting a projected saving of 5,522,105 euros from previously allocated funding for this purpose, including to ensure VNĪ fulfills its obligations arising from construction contracts, including for sections where infrastructure has been built with the support of the National Armed Forces.
To cover the costs included in the informative report related to the construction of necessary infrastructure for state external land border protection, as well as related works and services, the budget program 18.00.00 "Funding for strengthening national security measures" plans to allocate funding of 8,794,848 euros in 2026 and 6,864,192 euros in 2027, reallocating it to ensure infrastructure construction.
The constructed infrastructure will fully ensure continuous protection of the Latvia-Belarus and Latvia-Russia external land borders, reducing the threat of hybrid warfare and ensuring the ability to react in real-time to criminal offenses related to illegal state border crossings.
