From Le Figaro with AFP
Posted 51 minutes ago
On November 19, Finnish security force vehicles are deployed at a border crossing with Russia. MISKA PUUMALA / AFP
In response to the increasing number of asylum seekers, Helsinki has closed its border crossings with Russia. Moscow warned Finland.
Poland’s president vowed to “politically support” Finland on Monday, November 20, while Helsinki closed border crossings with Russia in response to rising numbers of asylum seekers. Last week, Finland closed four of eight border crossings and accused Moscow of trying to destabilize the country, which joined NATO in April, by allowing undocumented migrants to cross the shared border. According to Andrzej Duda, this is a “hybrid attack” comparable to the one Poland experienced on its border with Belarus.
Since 2021, Warsaw has accused Russia and Belarus of being behind the increase in the number of migrants trying to cross its border into the European Union. “Unfortunately, we have more than two years of experience in defending our border against migratory pressure,” the Polish president told the press during his meeting with Finnish leader Sauli Niinisto in Warsaw. “Finland can count on Poland’s full political support on the one hand and on the exchange of experiences on the other,” promised Andrzej Duda.
“We did not accept such allegations”
Sauli Niinisto recalled that the situation in which Finland found itself was very similar to the challenges that Poland had to face. “It appears that some of the migrants who did not enter Europe via Poland moved further north and towards the Finnish border,” he added. The two countries agreed to raise the situation on their eastern borders at upcoming EU summits. “In the long term, it is impossible for countries to deal with these problems alone (…), which can quickly recur in a neighboring country,” said Sauli Niinisto.
Russia on Monday denied exploiting migrants at the Finnish border and warned Finland of a possible closure of four remaining border crossings. “Such a decision would clearly harm Finland’s national interests,” Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told Russian authorities. “We do not accept such accusations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday, assuring that “Russian border guards are fully following all their service orders.” For its part, the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations announced on Monday that it had closed a temporary warming center for migrants in Karelia (northwest), near a border crossing with Finland that is still open.