Belarus’ KGB Chief explained reasons for strengthening control at the border

Ivan Tertel, the Chairman of the State Security Committee of Belarus, answering journalists’ questions after the meeting of President Aleksandr Lukashenko with the participants of the 52nd meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of Security Agencies and Special Services, explained the reasons for strengthening control on the external border of Belarus

Ivan Tertel recalled the adoption of additional measures aiming to strengthen the counterintelligence regime in Belarus, “This measure is currently being implemented along the entire perimeter of our border. It is aimed at the timely detection and localisation of the activities of persons harbouring terrorist and extremist aspirations in relation to Belarus. We receive information that there are real plans (primarily of individuals formed into various combat groups on the territory of Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, and some other states) to commit terrorist attacks on our territory. This barrier [strengthened control at the border] is only one of the components enabling us to carry out a certain ‘filtering’ of this contingent and prevent them from entering our territory.”

One of the recent examples is the prevention of an attempted terrorist act by May 9th, when explosives were sent to Belarus under the guise of household appliances.

“Unfortunately, the story is not over. We are active across all areas. I think that our citizens, on behalf of the Head of State, will learn about other facts after a certain period of time,” said Ivan Tertel.

The KGB Chief summed up, “The situation remains very difficult, we state that it will become more complicated in the future, so it’s necessary to develop additional joint measures by our friendly special services to stop the threats that are currently emerging. We see them reformatting. Traditionally, this is a military-political component that is formed on our various borders, this is terrorism, drug trafficking. We are discussing issues among the CIS special services, and we are working out common measures. In these difficult conditions, we rely on each other, despite all the circumstances, help to solve various kinds of problems, obtain information that is reported to the heads of our states and on the basis of which balanced, necessary strategic decisions are adopted in the field of ensuring the national security of our independent states.”