Armed, masked individuals attempted to force a group of at least 20 migrants across the Belarus-Latvia border on Oct. 5–6, threatening Latvian troops before briefly entering Latvian territory themselves, according to Latvian Interior Minister Janis Dombrava and the Latvian Armed Forces.
Dombrava said the armed escorts, positioned on the Belarusian side, actively pushed the migrants toward Latvia while issuing threats to soldiers. Latvian troops prevented the initial crossing, but the masked individuals later entered Latvia, damaging an electrical distribution panel and stealing surveillance cameras before retreating to Belarus ahead of border guards’ arrival. “Belarus should understand that incidents like these could have more serious consequences for Belarus itself,” Dombrava said .
The Latvian military described the incident as a particularly aggressive provocation and part of a broader hybrid campaign using migration to pressure the EU and NATO’s external borders . Since the start of 2026, Latvia has thwarted nearly 10,000 illegal border crossing attempts from Belarus, with the total exceeding 47,000 between August 2021 and June 2026 .
The EU has previously accused Belarusian authorities of deliberately facilitating migrant flows to the border, a tactic that escalated in 2021 . Latvian and Lithuanian border guards regularly intercept such attempts.
