The Kremlin has expressed regret over Finland’s decision to close the checkpoints and rejected Finnish authorities’ claims that Russia encouraged the influx of migrants at the border to punish Finland for joining NATO.
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Finland will close three of the last four remaining border crossings with Russia, suspecting Moscow of orchestrating a migration crisis, the Finnish prime minister announced on Wednesday.
“The government decided today to close further border crossings. Only the Raja-Jooseppi border crossing remains open,” Petteri Orpo said at a press conference.
On Wednesday, border guards and soldiers began erecting barriers, including concrete barriers topped with barbed wire, at border crossings on the Nordic country’s long border with Russia to better control the flow of illegal migrants, officials said.
About 600 migrants without proper visas and documents, mostly from the Middle East and Africa, arrived in Finland in November, compared with a few dozen in September and October. According to border officials, the arrivals also include residents of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Kenya, Morocco and Somalia.
“We have to do this to maintain order (at border crossings) 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 the checkpoints and rejected Finnish authorities’ claims that Russia encouraged the influx of migrants at the border to punish Finland for joining NATO.
The Tirkkonen District oversees and monitors two of Finland’s nine border crossings on the 1,340-kilometer-long border with Russia, which serves as the European Union’s external border and forms NATO’s northeastern flank.
This also includes the Vartius border station, one of two remaining Finnish border crossing points where asylum applications from migrants from Russia are accepted. The Finnish government decided last week to close four busy Russian border crossings in southeastern Finland amid suspicions of misconduct by Russian border officials.
“Russia is undoubtedly exploiting migrants” as part of its “hybrid war” against Finland, Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said on Wednesday. After decades of military non-alignment and pragmatic friendly relations with Moscow, Finland joined NATO in April.
“We have evidence that, unlike before, the Russian border authorities not only allow people without proper documents to the Finnish border, but also actively help them enter the border zone,” Valtonen said in comments to The Associated Press on Wednesday .
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday that Russian authorities were ready to work with Finnish officials to reach an agreement on the border issue. She argued that Finland “should have raised its concerns in order 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 frequently used border checkpoints.
About 30 to 70 migrants arrive every day at the Vartius checkpoint in Kainuu and the Salla checkpoint in Finland’s Arctic Lapland region, where temperatures of minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit) and lots of snow occur in winter.
Andrei Chibis, governor of Russia’s northern Murmansk region, which borders Finland, posted images on Wednesday of migrants in a tent near the Salla checkpoint that regional authorities had set up so they could warm up, 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, Border Patrol data and news agency photos show.
The number of migrants trying to reach Finland is unusually high, and Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s government has accused Moscow of deliberately funneling migrants into the Russia-Finland border zone, which is normally under strict control of Russia’s Federal Security Service ( FSB).
“There has been a notable change in Russia’s approach” towards migrants and their movement at the Russia-Finnish border, Tirkkonen said, adding that Finland will receive support from the EU border and coast guard Frontex in dealing with the situation .
Finland, a country of 5.6 million people, joined NATO in direct response to Russia’s war with Ukraine. Many interpret Moscow’s refugee maneuvers as retaliation for Helsinki’s decision to join the Western military alliance, but analysts say Russia’s main motive for such an action is unclear.