Lithuania starting to build fence on border with Russia

By the end of the year, the fence will be built on a 44.6-km stretch, the State Border Guard Service said.

The first fence post will be placed in the Ramoniškės village in the Šakiai district, western Lithuania.

The fence will be built under a 1.335-million-euro contract between the State Border Guard Service and Gintrėja, a local company. The money has been grated from the state budget.

The company will build a two-meter segment fence with additional equipment in a few stretches of total length of 44.6 km along the border with Kaliningrad. The fence will be built in stretches of the crossing of the Lithuanian, Polish and Russian state borders at Vištytis and in Šakiai and Vilkaviškis districts to the River Nemunas.

The State Border Guard Service has already installed technical surveillance systems along the 109-km border along the Nemunas, while the new fence will be built in territories where the border runs on land.

All tasks stipulated in the contract should be completed by December 20 of this year.

The authorities also plan to build a fence on Lithuania’s border with Belarus by 2020. They say that the fences are, first of all, aimed at curbing smuggling and keeping illegal migrants out of the country.