The Kremlin has expressed regret over Finland’s decision to close checkpoints and rejected claims by Finnish authorities that Russia has encouraged the influx of migrants at the border to punish Finland for joining NATO.
ADVERTISEMENTFinland will close three of the last four remaining border crossings with Russia, suspecting Moscow of orchestrating a migrant crisis, the Finnish prime minister announced Wednesday.
“The government has decided today to close more border crossings. Only the Raja-Jooseppi crossing will remain open,” Petteri Orpo said at a press conference.
On Wednesday, border guards and soldiers began erecting barriers, including concrete obstacles topped with barbed wire, at crossing points along the Nordic country’s long border with Russia to better control the flow of undocumented migrants, officials said.
About 600 migrants without visas or proper documentation, mostly from the Middle East and Africa, arrived in Finland in November, down from a few dozen in September and October. The arrivals include residents from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Kenya, Morocco and Somalia, border officials said.
“We need to do this to maintain order (at crossing points) and ensure the safety of legal border traffic,” Tomi Tirkkonen, deputy commander of the Kainuu border guard district in eastern Finland, told The Associated Press.
The Kremlin has expressed regret over Finland’s decision to close checkpoints and rejected claims by Finnish authorities that Russia has encouraged the influx of migrants at the border to punish Finland for joining NATO.
The Tirkkonen district controls and monitors two of Finland’s nine border points on the border with Russia, which stretches for 1,340 kilometers, serves as the external border of the European Union and constitutes the northeastern flank of NATO.
That includes the Vartius border station, one of the two remaining Finnish border points that accept asylum applications from migrants from Russia. The Finnish government decided last week to close four busy border crossings with Russia in southeastern Finland over suspicions of foul play by Russian border officials.
“Without a doubt, Russia is instrumentalizing migrants” as part of its “hybrid war” against Finland, Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said Wednesday. Finland joined NATO in April after decades of military non-alignment and pragmatic friendly relations with Moscow.
“We have evidence showing that, unlike before, the Russian border authorities are not only allowing people without proper documentation to enter the Finnish border, but are also actively helping them to reach the border area,” Valtonen said in comments to The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Wednesday that Russian authorities are ready to work together with Finnish officials to reach an agreement on the border issue. She maintained that Finland should have “expressed its concerns to find a mutually acceptable solution or receive an explanation,” she said.
On Monday, the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the Finnish ambassador in Moscow to lodge a formal protest against the closure of the most used checkpoints on the border.
Between 30 and 70 migrants arrive each day at the Vartius checkpoint in Kainuu and the Salla checkpoint in Finland’s Arctic Lapland region, where winter conditions include temperatures of -20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit) and lots of snow.
Andrei Chibis, governor of Russia’s northern Murmansk region, which borders Finland, on Wednesday posted photos of migrants in a tent near the Salla checkpoint set up by regional authorities to allow them to warm, eat and drink hot tea. He described the situation as a “humanitarian crisis” and criticized the Finnish authorities, saying that “foreign citizens cannot cross the border” to the Finnish side.
Most of the migrants are young men in their 20s, but some are families with children and women, according to border guard data and media photos.
The number of migrants attempting to cross into Finland is unusually high and Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s government has accused Moscow of deliberately driving migrants into the Russia-Finland border area that is normally under tight control by Russia’s Federal Security Service. (FSB).
“There has been a notable change in Russia’s modus operandi” regarding migrants and their movement on the Russia-Finland border, Tirkkonen said, adding that Finland will receive some assistance from the EU’s border and coast guard agency. Frontex, to address the situation.
Finland, a nation of 5.6 million people, joined NATO in direct response to Russia’s war with Ukraine. Many interpret Moscow’s migration maneuvers as retaliation against Helsinki’s decision to join the Western military alliance, but analysts say Russia’s main motive for such action remains unclear.
