The Gray Zone Between War and Peace on Europe’s Eastern Border
A US Army helicopter during special operations training near Daugavpils, Latvia.
Source: US Army/ZUMA Press/Shutterstock
In 2021, there were sometimes four flights a week from Baghdad to Minsk. In Daugavpils, in southeastern Latvia, authorities knew the schedule. “We know the time it takes to drive,” Lt. Col. Vadims Grickovs, head of the border control and immigration service in the city, said. “So we waited for our friends on the border.”
Thousands of migrants attempted to cross into Latvia, Lithuania or Poland, in what officials in all three countries believe was a deliberate effort by Belarus — a close ally of Russia — to seed a humanitarian crisis in the east of the European Union.