Latvia will keep digging anti-tank ditches through winter

Latvia will continue building anti-tank ditches along its eastern border through winter, aiming to complete the first 27-kilometre section by spring, LSM reported. The work is complicated by ground conditions and access roads. The ditches are part of the Baltic Defence Line, a system designed to delay an adversary and give defenders time to respond.

The first six kilometres of ditches have been dug in border municipalities. Work has been under way since September in Augšdaugava municipality, along the Latvia-Belarus border, including on land expropriated from residents.

Dace Plotniece, head of the Foreign and Border Projects Department at State Real Estate (VNĪ), said progress was initially slower because many sections still needed to be cleared of trees. As more land is cleared, the work teams can increase their capacity, she said.

Terrain determines where obstacles are built

Latvia’s National Armed Forces decide where and what obstacles should be built. Contractors then carry out the military plan on the ground.

“The terrain dictates where we need to build obstacles,” said Lieutenant Colonel Pēteris Suveizda, commander of the National Guard’s 3rd Latgale Brigade. Obstacles are not needed in marshes, dense forests or around rivers and lakes, he said. Instead, they are built along mobility corridors that could be advantageous to an adversary. As a result, the system will not cover the entire 400-kilometre border from Belarus to Russia.

The ditches are also being reinforced with concrete “dragon’s teeth”.