(Politico) A growing number of asylum seekers arriving on the EU’s eastern frontier is forcing Baltic countries to consider border closures with Russia, due to fears the Kremlin is weaponizing desperate people to create a migration crisis on the continent.
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are increasingly concerned after Finland last week shut all of its crossings with Russia for two weeks after undocumented migrants from crisis-hit countries in the Horn of Africa and Asia entered the Nordic nation.
The Latvian Ministry of Internal Affairs told POLITICO that Riga “does not currently plan to close the border with Russia and Belarus completely” but revealed officials are “carefully monitoring the further development of the situation with illegal immigration flows. If the situation changes radically and threatens the security of the country, it is not excluded that Latvia can also close its eastern border completely.”
