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According to Reuters, the Baltic states and Poland have called for a defense line along Europe’s border with Russia.
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They said it would protect the EU from Russia’s ‘military’ and ‘hybrid’ threats.
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NATO’s frontline countries are facing increasing Russian hybrid war threats.
NATO member states Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland have urged the EU to build defensive infrastructure along the 1,100-kilometer border with Russia and Belarus, according to Reuters.
The leaders of the four countries, all of which share a land border with Russia or Belarus, called for “extraordinary” measures to protect them and their allies.
“Building a defence infrastructure system along the EU’s external border with Russia and Belarus will respond to the urgent need to secure the EU against military and hybrid threats,” the parties said in a joint letter to the EU president, Reuters reported.
They said the plan should be discussed at a two-day summit in Brussels starting June 27, during which time EU leaders will discuss defense financing, among other issues.
Given the size and cost of the effort – which some EU diplomats estimate would amount to around $2.7 billion – bloc-wide action is needed to support it both politically and financially, the letter said, according to Reuters.
It did not specify exactly which military or civilian assets should be deployed.
NATO’s frontline countries have faced increasing Russian hybrid war threats, unconventional methods that Russia appears to be using that blur the line between war and peace and fall into what is called the “gray zone.”
Recent examples include the Russian Coast Guard removing buoys demarcating territorial waters between Russia and Estonia on the Narva River in May, a day after a leaked Russian proposal outlined plans to redraw Russian territorial waters with Estonia, Lithuania and Finland.
The Baltic region has also experienced increasing interference with the satellite navigation systems of commercial aircraft, which appears to be coming from Russia.
Meanwhile, EU officials have accused Russia and Belarus of pushing migrants towards Lithuania’s border with neighboring Poland.
Influence operations also targeted all three Baltic countries, with Estonia experiencing an increase in sabotages damaging a country submarine gas pipeline and telecommunications cables between the country and Finland in October.
In response to these threats and the threat of a possible Russian invasion, NATO and European countries close to Ukraine and Russia have begun drawing up their own defensive plans to protect their borders.
Read the original article on Business Insider
