Latvia has closed its border with Belarus for “technical reasons,” Interior Minister Janis Dombrava announced late on 31 July 2026, LSM reports. A day earlier, Dombrava urged Latvian residents not to travel across the border to or from Belarus. Kristine Petersone, spokesperson for Latvia’s State Border Guard (VRS), said that the border was closed due to disruptions in the operation of information systems at the Patarnieki border checkpoint. Latvia’s Cyber Incident Prevention Institution (CERT.LV) informed that there was no indication that the service disruption was due to any external influence.
Meanwhile, Latvia’s National Security Council agreed on new measures to strengthen the border with Belarus, President Edgars Rinkevics announced, LETA reported. He said that the new set of measures would be implemented in the near future by the Interior Ministry and the Defence Ministry. Rinkevics said that resolving the current problems on the Latvian-Belarusian border required “stepping slightly outside the standard policy,” as fencing and technical surveillance were insufficient to secure the border. He said that the problems were caused both by the Belarusian authorities and organised crime.
In the first seven months of 2026, Latvian border guards have prevented around 9,000 irregular migrants from crossing the border from Belarus, ERR reported. Border guards from Lithuania, Estonia, and Finland are assisting VRS in protecting the border. Saulius Nekrasevicius, deputy commander of the Lithuanian State Border Guard Service (VSAT), said that there were around 150 attempts to cross the border from Belarus into Latvia illegally every day, BNS reported. The problems at the Latvian-Belarusian border have led to an increase in so-called secondary migration to Lithuania and Estonia, ERR reports.