The Mercury Joint Operation, coordinated by Frontex, took place between 28 January and 9 February 2009. The main objective was to enhance the cooperation with Border Guard authorities from the Russian Federation and to establish information exchange between Frontex, EU Member States and the Russian Federation.
Austria, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Romania and the Russian Federation took part in this operation, while Lithuania and Poland were the hosting and home Member States.
During the operational period 18 experts from Members States were deployed to Lithuanian-Russian and Polish-Russian border crossing points and at the green border. The operational goal was to enhance border checks and green border surveillance. Participating border guard officers from the Russian Federation and Member States were exchanging information on passenger flow, refusals of entry, nationalities of migrants and cases of illegal border crossings as well as smuggling of goods and stolen cars. The operation was supported by two helicopters and two thermo-vision mobile units form Lithuania.
During the two weeks operation there were more than fifty refusals of entry, one illegal migrant apprehended, two cases of falsified documents and one stolen car detected. Smuggling of cigarettes was identified as one of the common illegal phenomenon at this particular border section.
The Mercury Joint Operation was the first operation with such an active involvement of the Russian Federation Border Guard authorities.