Finland reports increased traffic on Russian border

Helsinki — Traffic arriving at Finland’s eastern border with Russia “intensified” overnight and remained elevated on Thursday, the Finnish Border Guard said, though the situation was under control.

Finland, whose 1,300km border with Russia is the longest in the EU, is closely monitoring the situation in its neighbour after President Vladimir Putin’s order of military mobilisation for the war in Ukraine, Defence Minister Antti Kaikkonen said on Wednesday.

Finnish land border crossings have remained among the few entry points into Europe for Russians after a string of Western countries shut physical frontiers and their air space to Russian planes in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Traffic at the Finnish-Russian border intensified during the night,” the border guard’s head of international affairs, Matti Pitkaniitty, said on Twitter. Border guards were ready at nine checkpoints, he said.

Traffic from Russia was busier than normal at the Vaalimaa border crossing — one of nine with Russia — with three lanes of cars each stretching for 300-400 metres (yards), a border official there said.

A border guard spokesperson said the traffic situation remained elevated at 9am GMT, though a separate border guard statement said it had not changed “alarmingly” in recent days compared with pre-pandemic times.

The statement warned that “incorrect and misleading” information was circulating on social media.

Putin’s announcement, made in an early-morning television address on Wednesday, raised fears that some men of fighting age would not be allowed to leave Russia and prompted one-way flights out of the country to sell out fast.

Finland opted to keep its frontier with Russia open after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine though it has cut back the number of consular appointments available to Russian travellers seeking visas.

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, the other EU countries that border Russian territory, began turning away Russian citizens from crossings at midnight on Monday, saying they should not travel while their country is at war with Ukraine.

The three Baltic nations will offer no refuge to any Russians fleeing Moscow’s mobilisation of troops, their ministers said on Wednesday.

Finland is working on its own national solution to limit tourist traffic from Russia, Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said during a visit to New York late on Wednesday.

“Finland does not want to be a transit country for (EU) Schengen visas issued by other countries. This is the traffic we want to get under control,” Haavisto said.

Pitkaniitty said 4,824 Russians arrived in Finland via the eastern border on Wednesday, up from the 3,133 a week earlier.

In far northern Norway there had been no changes in the number of Russians crossing into the Nordic country, a police official said. Norway isn’t a member of the EU. 

Reuters