The Finnish government has no doubt: in recent months, the Russian Federation has used migrants as a weapon in its hybrid war, using a script already tested in Belarus to punish Helsinki for its decision to join the Atlantic Alliance. A concern also shared by the European Union, whose border agency (Frontex) has announced it will send dozens of agents and equipment to Finland as reinforcements to help police its borders amid suspicions that behind the influx of migrants, that arrive in the country, Vladimir Putin has a hand in it.
In fact, the number of migrants arriving in Finland from the Russian border has been increasing suspiciously for several months, even if the numbers are small: in November alone, over 700 migrants appeared in the Scandinavian country. Almost everyone on bikes and sneakers, despite the cold temperatures, from countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Kenya, Morocco, Somalia. Estonia, Russia’s Baltic neighbor, also recently saw a rise in the number of migrants attempting to enter the country through a border crossing in the border town of Narva. Around 30 migrants, mostly Somalis and Syrians, were sent back to Russia last week after failing to apply for asylum in Estonia.
The Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur has clearly formulated the accusation that Finland and Estonia and now Latvia are making against Russia. “All this,” he explained, “is completely staged by Russia, down to the smallest detail.” “In Russia,” he emphasized, “there is a border zone up to 10 kilometers long, which cannot be entered without the permission of the FSB (Russian Federal Security Service ) may be entered.” Service, ed.). And so all these hundreds of migrants accidentally end up at a border crossing in Finland on bicycles in the winter?” Pevkur asked journalists during a press conference. “Do we really have to believe that?”
In fact, the Helsinki government doesn’t believe in it. Last week it began closing border crossings with Russia, a decision prompted by suspicions of misconduct by Russian border officials. Of nine border crossings, only one is expected to remain open for asylum-seeking migrants. Finnish border guards and soldiers began erecting barriers at some border crossing points on Wednesday, including concrete barriers topped with barbed wire.
Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo described the situation in a speech to parliament as “a serious threat to border security” that endangers the national security of Finland’s 5.6 million inhabitants. “Finland cannot be influenced, Finland cannot be destabilized,” he said firmly. “Russia started this, and Russia can stop it.” Almost similar words from the Latvian prime minister regarding the influx of migrants from Belarus, which has now become almost an extension of Russia due to the Kremlin’s total control over Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko . “We have to understand that these are not just asylum seekers. This is a hybrid attack by Russia and Belarus,” he said at a joint press conference with his Finnish counterpart in Helsinki.
Moscow denies any involvement. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he was confident that Finland’s decision to almost completely close its border with Russia would not lead to the emergence of a new Iron Curtain like during the Cold War. “It is certainly premature to talk about it now. We see a lot of aggressive rhetoric from the other side, but we hope it doesn’t come to that,” he said during his press conference. Since there are thousands of Russians and Finns who have relatives across the border, this measure has caused resentment in both communities, particularly in northwestern Russia. Peskov also alluded to alleged NATO plans to create a kind of “military Schengen” to allow the free movement of troops across the European continent. “The alliance has always viewed our country as a virtual enemy. Now it openly sees our country as a clear enemy. This will only fuel tensions in Europe, and that will have consequences,” she emphasized. Rhetoric is always the same. “Europe does not want to address our concerns,” especially regarding indivisible security, Putin’s spokesman noted, after which it is NATO’s military infrastructure that is approaching Russian borders, and not the other way around, one of the excuses that will be used by Moscow start the current military operation in Ukraine. “This can only be a cause for concern and can only lead to countermeasures to ensure our safety,” he then reiterated.
A rhetoric that threatens to increase further after the announcement on Thursday that the EU border guard agency would send reinforcements. Frontex said it expected a “significant reinforcement” of 50 border guards and other personnel, as well as patrol cars and additional equipment, to be deployed as early as next week. Frontex Executive Director Hans Leijtens said sending reinforcements to the borders was “a demonstration of the European Union’s united position against hybrid challenges affecting one of its members.”
Finland is the EU’s easternmost border. After officially joining NATO last April, it also became a significant part of the alliance’s northeastern flank. The Finnish authorities believe that Russia has become more hostile towards Finland after joining. Finnish border officials told the Associated Press that there had been a notable change in Moscow’s modus operandi in the Russian-Finnish border area, which is normally under the strict control of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).
EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said this week that challenges at the Finnish border gave her a feeling of “déjà vu,” two years after Belarus began pushing migrants into Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, European ones officials described as an attempt to destabilize the 27th century. “The Finnish border is the EU border,” Johansson told European lawmakers in a message of support in Helsinki. “The European Union is at your side. You can count on our full support to protect the EU’s borders and defend fundamental rights.”
Most migrants – reports the AP – are young people between 20 and 30 years old, but some are also families with children and women. Almost all of them arrived in the border areas with bicycles that were given and/or sold to them, according to Finnish and Russian media. At these latitudes the temperatures are already below freezing. The drama is the same as last year on the border between Belarus and Poland, where it repeats itself again. With the same suspicions of hybrid warfare, but also with the same reactions as Fortress Europe, which confirms that immigration is its enormous Achilles heel.