One day before the end of 2025, Latvia has completed its 280-kilometre (174-miles) long border fence with Russia. The completion confirmed by the Latvian Interior Ministry was made public by the national broadcasting company LSM and Latgale Regional Television.
The fence went up at a cost of EUR 166 million, with another EUR 20 million expected to be invested next year in additional infrastructure and systems for patrol and surveillance. On the Latvian-Belarusian border the fence spanning 145 kilometres (90 miles) was completed last year.
What good is the fence?
Locals who live near the border are not impressed by the fence. Latgale Regional Television interviewed a villager named Juris in Baltinava. “What good is the fence? Keep dogs or boars away. All kinds of rockets fly through the air. What’s the point of a fence? It just wastes money.”
Apart from Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have also been building fences on their borders with Belarus, in an attempt to make illegal entry from the east less possibile. | © 2025 Marcel Burger, nordicreporter.com. Featured photo of a barbed-wired fence (not the one in Latvia), AI-generated with Adobe Firefly