At midnight on Friday, Finland closed four normally busy border crossings with Russia. The decision was announced on Thursday, and motivated by the need to reduce the amount of asylum seekers arriving in Finland from Russia. The four closed passages are those of Vaalimaa, Nuijamaa, Imatra and Niirala, in the south-eastern part of the country. The Salla and Vartius crossings in the central-western section of the border will remain open for asylum seekers. According to Finland, the Russian government is encouraging the entry of asylum seekers into Finnish territory as retaliation for Finland’s decision to join NATO, the military alliance that includes most Western countries.
Dmitri Peskov, the spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said that Finland was making a “big mistake” and that in this way the Finnish government had decided to “destroy” bilateral relations between the two countries. Peskov denied that Russia had ever “threatened” Finland.
Finnish border police said that around 300 asylum seekers entered the country from Russia this week, a much higher than average number, given that between January and October people who had tried to enter Finland from Russia without the necessary documents, such as visas or passports, had been in total 117. Finland shares a 1,340 kilometer border with Russia.