Latvia begins military exercise near Belarus border amid migrant crisis

FILE PHOTO: A Latvian border guard and an army serviceman walk past temporary barbed wire fencing along the Latvian-Belarus border near Robeznieki, Latvia, September 28, 2021. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins/File Photo

(Reuters) - European Union member Latvia has deployed 3,000 troops for a previously unannounced military exercise near its border with Belarus this weekend amid an escalating migrant crisis along the Belarusian-Polish border.

The EU planned to widen sanctions against Belarus over Western accusations, which on Monday it denounced as "absurd", that it is orchestrating a crisis that has left up to 4,000 migrants stranded in freezing forests on its border with Poland.