Ukraine accelerates Wall project on Russian border – border guards

16:35, 12.03.2015 1 min read

Ukraine's State Border Service will soon resume the active phase of building fortification facilities on the border with Russia under the Wall project, State Border Service spokesman Oleh Slobodian has said.

"At the moment, UAH 300 million has been earmarked this year for the first phase of engineering works. The first tranche worth UAH 30 million is expected in March. As soon as the money arrives and the weather gets better, the active phase of engineering works on the border will resume," he said at a press briefing on Thursday.

Late last year, the border guards' agency received UAH 235 million for the construction of fortification facilities on the Ukrainian-Russian border and on the administrative border with the Crimean peninsula.

"All in all, there are more than 137 km of antitank moats, over 86 km of artificial obstacles, and over 1,000 km of fresh control strips, and others on the Ukrainian-Russian border line," he said.

Also, the border service has offered the government its version of the Wall project with engineering costs reduced by almost by half, Slobodian said.