Two border stories from the region, ahead of 12 July 2021
Vaccine donations to Moldova and a fence going up in Lithuania showed how neighbours of Ukraine were handling pressure in early July 2021.
What was happening in Ukraine's neighbourhood by 12 July 2021? Two reports from the preceding days point to a region dealing with health and border pressures at once.
On 10 July 2021, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki announced that the United States had donated 500,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine to Moldova. Moldovan President Maia Sandu praised the United States for deploying the vaccines to her country.
On 9 July 2021, Lithuania began building a fence, costing $48 million, along its border with Belarus. A week earlier, Lithuania had declared a state of emergency because of a rise in the number of undocumented migrants, mostly Syrians, crossing from Belarus. Lithuania accused Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of deliberately trying to destabilise the country by encouraging and allowing the illegal crossings.
The two developments are separate, and the reports do not link them. Taken together, they show one neighbour receiving outside help with its vaccination effort and another responding to a migration dispute with emergency measures and physical barriers.
