MOSCOW. Nov 23 (Interfax-AVN) - Russia has the right to ensure its border security, including through the use of landmines, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Tuesday at State Duma hearings on the ratification of a protocol prohibiting anti-personnel mines.
"If we lay a mine field on the border, which we have a full right to do, the mined area will be determined up to the frontier line, and we will do it where we consider it necessary, and are free to do so," Ivanov told the deputies.
A state program for border development is being carried out, the minister said.
"The North Caucasus comes first in this program," Ivanov said.
Answering deputies' questions about measures stipulated by the program, he said: "Regrettably, not all borders are properly equipped, in the first place the borders with CIS member-states."
"We have no properly equipped border in the North Caucasus or with Kazakhstan, like the ones with Finland and Norway, which meet modern standards," Ivanov said.