Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia have called on the European Union to build a defense line along the EU’s border with Russia and Belarus to protect against threats from Moscow. Reuters reports that the EU President received a letter stating this.
The leaders of the four countries said that the project, which aims to protect the 27-nation bloc with 450 million people, will also require financial support from all EU members.
“Building a defence infrastructure system along the EU external border with Russia and Belarus will address the dire and urgent need to secure the EU from military and hybrid threats,” the journalists quote the proposals from the letter.
Hybrid threats, according to the letter, are a combination of military and non-military, as well as covert and overt means, including disinformation, cyberattacks, economic pressure, and the creation of migration crises at the borders.
“The scale and cost of this joint effort require targeted action by the EU in terms of financial and political support,” the letter says.
Some EU diplomats have estimated the cost of building such a defense line at around 2.5 billion euros.
The call for joint funding for a ground defense line on the EU’s eastern border comes after an initiative by Greece and Poland to create a joint EU air defense system modeled on Israel’s Iron Dome.
According to the letter, NATO and the Alliance’s requirements should guide the planning and construction of the defense line on the EU’s eastern border.
Earlier, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has made it clear that Warsaw may completely close the border with Belarus, he said in an interview with TVN24.
The Foreign Minister was asked whether Warsaw could demand anything from Minsk following the death of its border guard, who was stabbed by a migrant near the border with Belarus.
The Polish Foreign Minister also stressed that what is happening on our eastern border “is a fully controlled operation by Russian and Belarusian services at the moment. “And what is particularly appalling is that these people are being instructed by Belarusian state officials on how to punch a Polish soldier, a Polish border guard,” Radoslaw Sikorski said.
