Finland is considering building a wall on its border with Russia after closing its borders to Russian tourists last week. While the country has yet to register any illegal crossings on its territory, the project aims to control possible mass entry into Finnish territory and even hybrid attacks from Russia. Evidence that Finnish authorities are concerned about the deterioration of security on the eastern flanks.
The border between Finland and Russia is 1300 km long. It is an invisible line in the middle of dense forest and is frozen with snow for most of the year.
Therefore, it is impossible and probably useless to erect a wall beyond the border. Only 260 km will be renovated: areas deemed too porous by Finnish authorities will replace existing wooden fences with well-monitored and more difficult-to-climb fences.
“Europe at War”
The proposal made by the border guards received a positive response from Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin. But (3) he noted on Monday that he wanted broad consensus on the matter in the Parliament, as it is an expensive construction site and could take several years. The challenge is to mitigate the risks to the country in the event of mass immigration from Russia and even to provide protection against attacks from Moscow.
Responding to some international relations experts, who believed that this decision could increase tensions between Russia and Finland, the Finnish leader justified the measure: “Europe is at war. The situation could not be more tense than this”.
Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Finland has received a record number of refugees into the country. According to Finnish authorities, in August, the number had already surpassed the last record reached during the 2015 migration crisis.
Finland, which is a candidate to join NATO along with Sweden, needs the approval of all 30 member states to become part of the Atlantic Alliance. These two countries gave up their traditional neutrality due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
source: Noticias
