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These people were waiting for the opportunity to cross the border for several days. Läänemets said Russia could send people en masse to cross the border illegally. The border service uses drones to find out if the Russian Federation is doing this.
If that happens, Estonia cannot assume that all these people are Ukrainian refugees, the minister said.
“Of course, everyone else will be included in this crowd, citizens of the Russian Federation, all kinds of agents and other people,” he said.
He admitted that if Russia takes these people to a site unprepared for legal border crossing, a physical barrier will be erected there. People will be redirected to the border crossing or a temporary roadblock will be set up.
According to the minister, Estonia has also established contacts with the Ukrainian embassy to verify the biographies of the people arriving. Now Estonia also lets people in with a copy of a Ukrainian passport, but Russia has room for all kinds of forgeries. Therefore, there are people on the border who talk to the arrivals and try to identify those who lie about their origin and motivation.
Ukrainians in Russia
Thousands of Ukrainian citizens were forcibly brought by the Russians from the occupied territories to Russia after a full-scale invasion began in February. In particular, at the end of March, they organized a mass deportation of Ukrainians from Mariupol and other occupied settlements, first to the “LPR” and “DPR”, and then, after filtering, to Russia.
These people, as well as those who left the occupied territories for the Russian Federation alone, often try to return to Ukraine. To do this, Ukrainians choose routes via Belarus and Poland or via Estonia.
A new flow of Ukrainians eager to leave Russia for Europe began with the holding of so-called referendums in the occupied territories of Ukraine on the accession of these regions to the Russian Federation and the subsequent announcement of Vladimir Putin on the attempt to annex these territories. In particular, due to the threat of mobilization of the local population in the Russian army. Queues formed on the borders of the Russian Federation with Estonia and Latvia.
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