“Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal said that the country’s government decided to close night traffic at the Luhamaa and Koidula checkpoints for three months from February 24 due to constant provocations by Russia.”, — write: www.pravda.com.ua
Source: “European truth” with reference to the broadcaster ERR
Michal’s direct speech: “Since Russia sometimes behaves irrationally at the border, we need to free up resources for more effective border protection. From February 24, we will reduce the working hours of border posts for three months and will close them at night in order to be able to more closely monitor the situation in other parts of the border.”
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Details: According to the government’s plan, the Luhamaa and Koidula road crossings will be completely closed to traffic at night. During the day, they will remain open for 12 hours.
Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Taro stated that the behavior of Russian border guards constantly requires additional resources and increased attention from the Department of Police and Border Guard.
“By reducing the night working hours of the border posts, we will be able to more effectively use our employees where they are most needed,” the minister said.
He added that the decision will be implemented for three months, after which the situation will be reviewed and further measures will be taken.
Taro also emphasized that reducing the scope of work of border posts on the Estonian-Russian border is a logical step in the conditions when the number of border crossings has decreased significantly and will probably not recover to the former level.
What preceded:
- On December 17, three Russian border guards crossed the border with Estonia on the Narva River. They stayed on Estonian territory for about 20 minutes.
- After that, Estonian and Russian border guards discussed this incident at a joint meeting for two hours. Russian representatives claimed that there was no illegal crossing of the border.
- And recently the government of Estonia decided to change procedure for crossing the state border for Russian citizens working in diplomatic and consular institutions.