Finland closes remaining checkpoint crossing on Russian border

Helsinki, November 29 (ANI): The last operating checkpoint on Finland’s Russian border will close on Thursday, completely closing off the NATO (North-Atlantic Treaty Organisation) country’s eastern border with Russia for two weeks, CNN has reported.

“Russia is enabling the instrumentalization of people and guiding them to the Finnish border in harsh winter conditions. Finland is determined to put an end to this phenomenon,” Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said in a press release on Tuesday.

At midnight on November 30, the Nordic country will close the last checkpoint, remaining closed until December 13, Finland’s Ministry of Internal Affairs said in Tuesday’s press release.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and Finland’s ascension into NATO, there has been an increasing effort by Helsinki to restrict crossings from Russia, according to CNN.

Finland’s Interior Minister Mari Rantanen said in the press release that it is necessary to close the entire eastern border with Russia, adding that the decision was taken to “protect Finland’s national security against this Russian hybrid operation.”

In a post on social media by the Finnish Border Guard, they said, “Finland’s goal is to end the illegal entry from Russia.”

“Finland takes care of its own border security and the Finnish Border Guard is ready to quickly implement new decisions of the Government,” the border guard added.

Finland shares an 830-mile-long border with Russia, one of the few entry points for Russians after many Western countries shut their airspace and borders to Russian planes in response to the Ukraine invasion.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko called the move “irrational” and stated that it would harm Finnish citizens.

“They closed the border, how can we react? Finnish citizens will suffer,” said Grushko on the sidelines of the Primakov Readings forum in Moscow.

“We can comment on some rational decisions, then we can look for some kind of logic. But sometimes the decisions are simply irrational,” he said, adding that only about 700 migrants during this period tried to cross the Russian-Finnish border.

On November 16, in an effort to stop illegal border crossings, the Finnish government announced it would temporarily close four crossing points along the 820-mile stretch of borderland from this week until February 2024.

Illegal crossings have continued despite the imposed restrictions, Finland’s interior ministry said during Tuesday’s press release.

“Since the beginning of August, almost 1,000 third-country nationals have arrived in Finland without a visa via the border crossing points at the eastern border. Most of them have applied for asylum in Finland,” the ministry said.

“In such very exceptional circumstances, the short-term total closure of the eastern border is a necessary and proportionate measure to put an end to this phenomenon and to limit the serious consequences that it has for national security and public order,” the ministry added in the press release.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday accused Russia of using migration as a “tool” to create “pressure” along its border with Finland, CNN has reported.

“We have seen them using energy, we have seen them using cyber attacks, we have seen them using different kinds of clandestine operations to try and undermine our democracies. The fact that Russia is using migration as a tool is now another example of the attempt to put pressure on neighbours,” Stoltenberg said at a news conference in Brussels.

Stoltenberg said he is “confident that Finland is capable of dealing with” the issue. NATO has not received a request from Finland for support in guarding its borders.

Although he welcomed the move by the European Union’s border agency, Frontex, to deploy 50 guards along the Finnish border.

Helsinki closed its border at the end of September 2022, around the time traffic over the frontier intensified as Russians tried to flee President Vladimir Putin’s “partial mobilisation” of hundreds of thousands of citizens to fight in the war. More than 8,500 Russians crossed the border in one day alone.

The Finnish Border Guard has also begun to construct a border barrier fence earlier this year along some of the border, where crossings are rife, CNN has reported.