Finland unveils fence along Russian border to counter ‘hybrid warfare’
Translated from English and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.
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- Finland has completed sections of a 200-kilometre, 4.5-metre-high fence along its eastern border with Russia.
- Officials say the barrier will support surveillance and help prevent migrants from entering if needed, after Helsinki accused Moscow of orchestrating migrant arrivals in 2023.
- The €356 million project comes as Finland keeps its land crossings with Russia closed and seeks to extend a law allowing asylum seekers to be turned away in limited circumstances.
Finland has unveiled a 200-kilometre fence along its eastern border with Russia, saying the barrier will help deter Moscow from instrumentalising migrants to destabilise the country.
The fence has been built in strategic sections and rises 4.5 metres high. It includes cameras and sensors, and Finland’s interior minister, Mari Rantanen, said it would support surveillance and keep people out of Finnish territory if necessary.
Today, it is calm but tense, and we really don’t know about tomorrow.
“Today, it is calm but tense, and we really don’t know about tomorrow,” Rantanen said during a media event near the Nuijamaa border crossing in southeastern Finland. “It can change really rapidly, and that is why we need to be very prepared.”
It can change really rapidly, and that is why we need to be very prepared.
Finland closed its 1,340-kilometre land border with Russia in December 2023 after more than 1,300 undocumented migrants arrived. The situation has since remained calm, with only a few individual illegal crossings. Helsinki accused Moscow of waging hybrid warfare by orchestrating the arrivals, a charge the Kremlin denied. The border closure came months after Finland joined NATO in April 2023, ending decades of military non-alignment.
The Border Guard says the infrastructure project involved about 1,000 landowners and hundreds of companies. It cost €356 million, with annual maintenance estimated at €2 million to €3 million. Project manager Erkki Matilainen said drones had advanced rapidly, but fencing remained the best option for crowd control.
This is one part of our border security and it is helping us for surveillance, but also keeping people out of Finnish territory if needed.
Similar barriers have appeared in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland along borders with Belarus. Finland’s crossings with Russia will remain closed until further notice. Helsinki has also proposed extending its Border Security Act until the end of 2028. The measure allows border guards, in limited areas and for one month at a time, to turn away asylum seekers when sovereignty and national security are judged to be threatened. Experts say the law conflicts with Finland’s international human rights commitments and constitution, a concern the government has acknowledged.
A border fence was still viewed as the best solution for crowd control.
About this summary
Originally published by RTÉ News in English. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.
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