Latvia and Estonia secure their borders with anti-tank ditches and bunkers

Latvia and Estonia are making progress in strengthening their eastern EU external border with Russia. According to a report by Latvian television, anti-tank ditches have been dug along a four-kilometer stretch of the Latvia-Russia border. By next spring, 27 of a total of 89 kilometers should be completed. The trenches are to be supplemented by further obstacles such as concrete anti-tank barriers - so-called dragon's teeth.

“The idea is that the enemy needs different types of equipment to overcome these obstacles,” said Latvian military official Edgars Briedis. In order to overcome an anti-tank ditch, for example, it would have to be filled in or appropriate combat bridges would have to be used, he said. “Other systems are required to eliminate the dragon’s teeth.”

The television report showed three rows of anti-tank barriers placed side by side, each of which weighs one and a half tons and is just over a meter high. An anti-tank ditch is to be dug next to it, which will be slightly deeper than two meters. Both systems would be built just a few meters from the border fence with Russia.

In Estonia, on the other hand, according to a radio report, the first concrete bunkers were completed near the border town of Narva at the end of October and are intended to protect soldiers from direct hits from artillery shells. Previously, additional protection systems had already been built in the northeast and southeast of the country, which are equipped with power and communication systems. Concrete and anti-tank barriers were also erected.

Estonian army representative Ainar Afanasjev said: "We know that we won't have much time if the enemy crosses the border. We also don't have any area that we can give to them to buy time. That's why we start right at the border and try to do as much as possible in peacetime."

By the end of 2027, Estonia wants to build a total of up to 600 bunkers in the northeast and southeast of the country along the border, which are located below the surface of the earth and whose entrances are to be sealed. According to the report, 28 shelters have been completed so far.

The construction of the defenses and physical barriers serves to create the Baltic defense line with which Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania want to secure their eastern borders against possible attacks. With this, the governments in Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius are reacting to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, which is seen as a direct threat to national security.

More than 70 generals from Germany and the Netherlands recently got an on-site look at the construction and preparatory work for the defense line. Not without reason: the Bundeswehr has stationed the 45th Panzer Brigade, which is currently being set up, in Lithuania, and since July the German-Dutch Corps has also been conducting possible NATO land operations in Estonia and Latvia.