Russian official sounds alarm over lack of controls at Belarusian border

Russia's border control chief has sounded an alarm over the lack of controls at the Belarusian border, warning that members of terrorist groups and criminals could easily sneak into Russia from Belarus.

While speaking in the State Duma on Wednesday, Vladimir Pronichev, director of the Russian Border Control Service, noted that Georgian nationals were still allowed to enter Belarus visa-free although Russia had introduced the visa requirement for Georgians long before. As a result, he said, law-enforcement agencies thwarted “dozens attempts” by Georgian citizens to illegally cross the Belarusian border into Russia in 2006.

The Belarusian State Border Troops Committee was expected to comment on the remarks later in the day, BelaPAN reported.

The shared border issue was raised by Aleksandr Lukashenko last week, when he said that Belarusian border guard units would not be deployed at the Russian border this year.

“Despite the position that the Russian leadership has taken today, we will not introduce any border troops operations on the Belarusian-Russian border. We will not guard it,” he said at a meeting with Aleksandr Pavlovsky, the country's border control chief, on January 18.

General Pavlovsky noted that Russia was “one step away” from restoring full-scale border controls at the shared border, pointing to the operation on the border of 16 Russian customs clearance points for third-country goods.

He added that Russia had deployed on the Belarusian border 150 officers “acting in the interests of the Russian border troops.”