In recent weeks, a growing number of asylum-seeking migrants have crossed the once-quiet border between Russia and Finland in freezing temperatures, a measure that Helsinki had called for Hybrid attack.
Many wrapped up in thick winter coats and traveled by bicycle to avoid the ban on crossing the border on foot. Finland banned the entry of bicycles last week.
In early October, Finnish border guards sounded the alarm about a change in Moscow’s policy, saying Russia was allowing more and more migrants to the border without proper documents.
Since August, around 700 asylum seekers have entered Finland without a visa across the 1,300 kilometer long border with Russia.
This led to Finland closing all border crossings with Russia last week except for the northernmost one in the Murmansk region.
Finnish officials say Russia is trying to destabilize its Nordic neighbor. “This is a systematic and organized action by the Russian authorities,” Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said on Monday. . “We do it for the safety of Finns. “The decision is not directed against anyone, but rather aims to protect Finland’s sovereignty,” he explained.
Elina Valtonen, the Finnish foreign minister, believes that Russia helped people now seeking asylum in Finland reach the border. Among other things, she calls it part of the “Russian hybrid war.” “We demand that Russia stop sending people to our border,” he says.
Spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova, denied that Russia acted intentionally.
“The Finnish authorities are starting to make lame excuses and stir up Russophobic feelings,” he said.
Finland’s traditionally friendly relationship with its eastern neighbor has deteriorated since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
After Finland reversed its decades-long policy of military non-alignment and joined NATO in April, Moscow warned of “countermeasures”.
“Russia and the West, including Finland, are in a very deep conflict,” he says. Arkady Moshes, Director of the Russia Program at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA). “Migration as a weapon is one of the tools” Russia has at its disposal.
Moshes said there are “parallels” with the Belarus-EU border crisis in 2021. The EU has claimed that President Alexander Lukashenko In retaliation for the sanctions, they pushed tens of thousands of migrants across the Belarusian border into Poland. “The Finnish government’s actions show that Poland’s experience has been taken into account,” Moshes said.
The European Union’s border protection agency, Frontex, announced on Thursday that it would send 50 officers to Finland to strengthen the country’s border controls.
Poland has tightened its border to resolve the crisis and Finnish authorities intend to do the same.
Anticipating that Moscow could use the migrants as political leverage, Finland began building a 200-kilometer-long fence along its Russian border in February. But only three kilometers of fence are finished.
In terms of information warfare, pushing people to the Finnish border may be “a double win situation for Russia,” believes Moshes.
Finland is left with two bad options: it can keep the border open and accept migrants or close the border completely. “If Finland doesn’t close its border… it will show that the West is weak,” Moshes claims in the eyes of Russia. If Finland closes the border, Russia could play the victim and call the reaction a “Russophobic action,” he added.
But the move also carries risks for Russia. The immigrants mostly come from the Middle East and Africa and do not have visas.
Pushing migrants to the Finnish side could draw criticism from Russia’s allies in the Middle East and the Muslim world. In addition, Russia has the responsibility to feed and house them as long as the migrants stay on Russian territory. “In the end, even Lukashenko. We had to build accommodation for these people,” explains Moshes.
With a growing number of migrants stuck at the border, Finland is now struggling to balance its security concerns and its human rights obligations.
“That is certainly one of the goals of hybrid warfare: to try to undermine important fundamental institutions of the state,” he said. Eeva NykanenProfessor of Law at the University of Eastern Finland.
The Finnish government has considered closing the border, but is aware of its international obligations.
The availability of places to apply for asylum “may be limited in exceptional cases,” but Finland is obliged to guarantee some access points, Nykanen explained.
Even if the border were completely closed, it is unclear how Finland would deal with those crossing wilderness areas illegally.
From a legal perspective, a migrant has the right to apply for asylum even if he enters illegally, said Nykanen.
As temperatures drop, it could also become ethically unacceptable for Finland to watch migrants freeze to death behind barbed wire fences. “This would be a humanitarian crisis that should be solved,” says Nykanen.