Riga, March 17 (LETA) - Due to the influx of migrants, the State Border Guard will ask the government to decide on a partial closure of the border checkpoint Paternieki in Kraslava district, i.e. to allow only road traffic to cross it, said Guntis Pujats, chief of the State Border Guard, in an interview on the Latvian Television.

Pujats explained that the proposal would be submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers on Monday. He explained that the government would decide on the timeframe, but it could be, for example, six months.

If the flow of trespassers becomes critically high, the State Border Guard could ask to close the border crossing altogether, he confirmed.

Pujats revealed that the border checkpoint was closed for a short period at weekend for two reasons. First, due to unstable technical systems. Second, there was a risk that the point could be used to instrumentalize illegal migration. In particular, border guards observed a gathering of trespassers on the Belarusian side.

"After analyzing the information, there were high risks that the checkpoint could be used to push illegal immigrants into Latvia from Belarus. The observations confirm this," Pujats explained.

He revealed that several dozen people were gathered on the other side of the border. And this preventive step was taken to prevent several hundred people from trying to enter Latvia.

Around midnight on Sunday, the Border Guard checkpoint was reopened and the technical systems were restored.

Pujats explained that this was the first time that the decision to close the border crossing point had to be taken immediately.

Pujats pointed out that a very large number of violators are heading towards Poland. During the winter period, they are up to 100 people per day. "We cannot exclude that at some point these flows may also be diverted to Latvia," he explained.

Latvian authorities consider attempts by Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko's regime to push migrants across Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish borders to be methods of hybrid warfare targeting these countries.