Finland, a NATO member country, closed today its last remaining border crossing with Russia, with which it shares a 1,340-kilometer land border. The previous day, the government of Finnish Prime Minister Peteri Orpo decided to temporarily close the entire border, as it believes that Moscow is using the migrants to destabilize the Nordic country in an alleged act of “hybrid warfare”.
Finland closed one border crossing after another, and in the past week closed three of the remaining four open ones, and until today only Raja-Josepi in the Finnish Arctic region of Lapland, 250 kilometers from Murmansk in the north of Russia, was still in operation.
Raja-Josepi is closed at 2 pm, according to the usual schedule.
Vile Ahtiainen, the deputy commander of the Finnish border guard in Lapland, told reporters that the border crossing, located in the middle of harsh wilderness, was calm during the four hours he worked today.
Several vehicles crossed it on both sides, and the border cannot be crossed on foot.
According to Ahtiainen, no migrants have attempted to enter Finland via the Raja-Josepi crossing.
Finnish authorities claim that around 1,000 migrants without visas or valid documents have been arriving at its borders since August, and that in November alone there were more than 900.
Finland, until recently a militarily neutral country, forms a significant part of NATO’s northeastern wing, and its eastern border is at the same time the European Union’s external border with Russia.
The migrants hail from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, and the vast majority applied for asylum in Finland when they arrived on the Finnish side of the border, authorities said.
Finland accuses Moscow of deliberately bringing migrants into the border zone, which on the Russian side is heavily controlled by Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB.
The formal closure of Finland’s entire eastern border with Russia takes effect at midnight tonight, but in practice the Raja-Josepi crossing was the only point that remained open after the Finnish government closed seven other crossings this month.
The situation raises tensions between Helsinki and Moscow after decades of pragmatic friendly relations between the neighboring countries.
Those ties were severed by Finland’s May 2022 decision to join NATO, a direct result of Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
In April of this year, Finland became the 31st member of NATO.
The Kremlin denies Russia is encouraging migrants to enter Finland and says it regrets closing the Finnish border.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said today that Finland has officially informed Moscow that it has closed the last remaining border crossing.
This week, Zakharova accused Helsinki of harming its own citizens by closing the border.
Asked to comment on NATO’s alleged plans to deploy troops on the Finnish-Russian border, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said today that “nobody and nothing threatens Finland,” and called the move “an exaggeration.”
At the same time, he warned that “tensions may arise during the concentration of additional troops on our border”.
“We consider the concentration of troops on our border absolutely unprovoked and unfounded,” Peskov said and added. “The Finns must be aware, very clearly, that the accumulation of troops on our border will pose a threat to us.”
Currently, there are no NATO troops permanently stationed on Finnish territory or along the border with Russia, except for those foreign troops that participate in regular exercises of the military alliance with the Finnish army.
Some experts cited by Finnish media believe Peskov is referring to the EU’s border agency Frontex, which has sent personnel and equipment to help Finnish border authorities patrol and monitor the country’s very long eastern border.
The complete closure of the border between Finland and Russia is expected to last at least two weeks and last until December 13, after which one crossing could be reopened, the Finnish government said.
The railway crossing between the two countries remains open, but only for freight traffic, Beta reports.
