Item 1 of 6 Syrian friends Mohammed and Mahmoud, who asked not to be pointed out in this handout picture taken by Finnish Border Guard, stand among a group of migrants who arrived from Russia to Salla border crossing in Finland November 20, 2023. Finnish Border Guard/Handout via REUTERS
[1/6]Syrian friends Mohammed and Mahmoud, who asked not to be pointed out in this handout picture taken by Finnish Border Guard, stand among a group of migrants who arrived from Russia to Salla border… Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab Read more
Summary
Finland plans tough new measures to deter asylum seekers
Finns accuse Russia of funnelling migrants across border
Moscow denies assertion, says Finland and NATO to blame
Syrian friends recount how they reached border by bike
HOILOLA, Finland, June 11 (Reuters) – Only the whine of mosquitoes mars the tranquility of this idyllic spot amid the rolling forests and blue lakes of eastern Finland, on the European Union’s longest border with Russia.
But Finnish authorities fear the peace and quiet of places like Hoilola could soon be shattered by the arrival of large numbers of asylum seekers – part of what Helsinki sees as a “hybrid war” being waged by Russia against the West.
Finland is deploying more border guard patrols, drones and electronic detectors and is building fences along sections of the border. In Helsinki, parliament is expected to approve before its summer recess tough new legislation that critics say will violate the country’s human rights commitments.
Late last year Finland shut all crossing points for travellers along its 1,340 km (833 mile) border with Russia indefinitely after some 1,300 migrants from nations such as Syria and Somalia arrived via that route.
Reuters Graphics
Since then, only a few dozen asylum seekers have crossed the heavily forested border into Finland, but Helsinki believes the Kremlin stands ready to funnel more migrants across at any time – something Moscow has strongly denied.
Under the planned new legislation, Finnish border guards will be able to call on thousands of reservists to help patrol the frontier, to detect migrants’ phone signals, to send the migrants to detention centres and – most controversially – to push them back into Russia without accepting their asylum applications.
“Finland cannot just allow the opening of such a new route (for migrants) into Europe,” Finnish Interior Minister Mari Rantanen, from the nationalist Finns Party, told Reuters.
“But overall this is not about a migrant route: this is about a situation in which the authorities of another country are helping or even pressing and pushing migrants to Finland’s border,” said Rantanen.
Relations with Moscow, once relatively cordial, have deteriorated sharply since Finland’s decision to join NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
through the Gulf of Guinea, located off the West African coast. The region serves as the main gateway for cocaine shipments from South America to Europe. In recent months, several large-scale anti-trafficking operations have taken place there. In September, the French Navy reported that 54 tonnes of narcotics had been seized in the area since the beginning of the year.
Claesson also emphasized that Moscow is combining “sabotage, special operations, and even attacks against individuals” with strikes on critical infrastructure and the “exploitation of vulnerabilities in the information environment” in an effort “to divide us” and “undermine the cohesion” of the European community.
Retired, living in the Scottish Borders after living most of my life in cities in England. I can now indulge my interest in all aspects of living close to nature in a wild landscape. I live on what was once the Iapetus Ocean which took millions of years to travel from the Southern Hemisphere to here in the Northern Hemisphere. That set me thinking and questioning and seeking answers.
In 1998 I co-wrote Millennium Countdown (US)/ A Business Guide to the Year 2000 (UK) see https://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780749427917
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