Finland has said it will close some crossing points on its border with Russia, after the Nordic nation accused Moscow of guiding asylum seekers towards its territory in an apparent act of revenge for Helsinki’s cooperation with the US.
The Finnish prime minister, Petteri Orpo, said on Thursday that four of nine crossing points on the 830-mile border would be closed on Friday night in response to a rise in the number of refugees and migrants.
Since Finland’s Nato accession earlier this year, tensions between the two countries have become increasingly strained.
“The government has today decided that Finland will close some eastern border crossing points. The eastern border for that part will close on the night between Friday and Saturday,” Orpo told a press conference.
On Wednesday the Finnish president, Sauli Niinistö, vowed “very clear action” over the arrivals, which, according to the border guard authority, have been steadily growing along the border in south-east Finland in recent days.
Russian border guards usually stop people without valid EU visas from crossing into Finland. But on Wednesday Niinistö said he believed Russia had started guiding asylum seekers towards Finnish crossing points in retaliation for Helsinki’s plans to sign a defence cooperation agreement with Washington.
“I don’t see the border traffic ending in any other way than with very clear Finnish action,” Niinistö said at a press conference in Bonn.
The border guard authority said that as of 6pm local time, 74 asylum seekers had arrived at the border in south-east Finland on Wednesday. On Tuesday the number was 55 and on Monday it was 39.
Recalling previous comments, he said Finland should be prepared for a “certain malice” from Russia after joining Nato.
“Yes, we are now constantly being reminded every day that Finland joined Nato. I think that this time, maybe it was the DCA [defence cooperation agreement] that triggered the situation,” he said.
He supports government plans to enable traffic at the border to be restricted, adding: “Yes, I now understand that it won’t end on its own.”
Maria Zakharova, a spokesperson for the Russian foreign ministry, dismissed Niinistö’s statement as “absolutely groundless”. Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson for the Kremlin, said Moscow deeply regretted Finland’s decision to distance itself from what it described as previously good bilateral relations.
Earlier this month, the border guard authority banned people from crossing the border by bike in reaction to “foreigners travelling from Russia to Finland by bicycle, without adequate travel documents for entering the Schengen area”.
Finland adopted legislation last year that would allow crossing points to stop receiving asylum applications in the event of mass immigration orchestrated by another country.
Jussi Laine, a border studies professor at the University of Eastern Finland, said Helsinki was overreacting to a Russian attempt to exert pressure, which was just what Moscow wanted.
Laine said: “This is hybrid-influencing machined by Russia and a key element in it is to create havoc and panic. If this is what they are aiming at, I would say they got it with very little effort.”
The Finnish Refugee Council said the right to seek refuge should be respected, regardless of where applicants came from or how they accessed the border.
