Latvia’s Foreign Ministry plans to ask other Schengen Area countries to consider a unified approach to the entry of Belarusian and Russian citizens to the EU, Baltic News Network reports, citing LSM. Earlier, a group of Russian citizens arrived in Latvia as part of an Azerbaijani football team, using Schengen visas issued by a third…
Estonia’s largest security firms increased their turnover and profit in 2022, ERR reports. G4S Eesti’s revenue totalled EUR 59.5mn in 2022, which was up 6% from 2021. The company’s annual profit amounted to EUR 1.9mn, which was up from a loss of EUR 300,000 a year earlier. G4S Eesti employed 1,880 people in 2022. Retail…
Latvia’s state real estate management company, Valsts Nekustamie Ipasumi (VNI), has taken over a project to build a fence on the country’s border with Russia from the State Security Service (VDD), LSM reports. VNI board chairman Renars Griskevics said that construction work would resume at the end of 2023. However, the final deadline for the…
Lithuania’s preparedness for possible threats is adequate for the current situation, Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte stated, LRT reports. She was commenting reports that Russian private military company Wagner Group’s mercenaries had arrived in neighbouring Belarus. Simonyte said that Lithuanian intelligence agencies were monitoring the situation in Belarus and exchanging information with allied partners. Defence Minister…
Latvia’s state real estate management company, Valsts Nekustamie Ipasumi (VNI), will speed up the construction of a fence on the country’s border with Belarus, LSM reports. VNI’s board chairman, Renars Griskevics, said that VNI would build 85.9 km of the fence in autumn 2023 and the remaining 80.6 km by the end of 2024. The…
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda criticised Defence Minister Arvydas Anusauskas for sharing information on Lithuania’s plans to sign a letter of intent on the purchase of Leopard tanks from Germany, LRT reports. Nauseda said that the State Defence Council (VGT) had agreed that restricted information “should not be shared on Facebook right after the meeting.” He…
The editor-in-chief of Russian propaganda agency Sputnik’s Lithuanian edition, Marats Kasems, has fled Latvia, fearing criminal prosecution, Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, announced, LETA reports. Riga-based Russian independent news website Meduza reported that Kasems was now in Russia. Meanwhile, his Facebook page indicates that he is currently in the UK. Earlier, Kasems pled…
The Lithuanian government has allocated EUR 276mn from borrowed funds for military mobility and infrastructure projects in 2023, BNS reports. Finance Minister Gintare Skaiste said that the Defence Ministry would invest EUR 148mn and the Ministry of Transport and Communications another EUR 128mn in the first year of the investment programme. Total investments in military…
Canada’s new defence attaché to Lithuania, Colonel Robert Foster, was accredited at the Lithuanian Defence Ministry on 26 July 2023, BNS reported. Prior to his appointment, Foster served as Canada’s defence attaché in Ukraine for the past four years. Lithuania’s Defence Minister, Arvydas Anusauskas, expressed hope for greater military cooperation with Canada, which has deployed…