Russia to strengthen border security

Russia will keep strengthening its border security, replacing outdated protective installations such as barbed wire fences with advanced surveillance and monitoring equipment, Vladimir Streltsov, a deputy head of Russia’s Federal Security Service, said in an interview with government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta. Radars, laser control systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, CCTV cameras, night vision equipment and other automatic information collection devices will be increasingly used to protect Russia’s 61,000-kilometer border, Streltsov said. The Federal Security Service is also considering using ground effect vehicles (GEVs) for border control purposes, he said. Weary vehicles currently used by border guards will also be replaced with modern four-wheelers and snowmobiles, he added. Russia shares land borders with 14 countries such as Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, North Korea, as well as South Ossettia and Abkhazia, which are both recognized as sovereign states by Russia. It also has maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, and the U.S. state of Alaska by the Bering Strait. Since the Soviet collapse, Russia has been fighting against massive illegal immigration from former Soviet Central Asian republics, as well as a huge inflow of heroin from Afghanistan that kills dozens of thousands of Russians every year.