Finland to fence off border with Russia

Finland is expected to build a fence along parts of its 830-mile land border with Russia to keep out illegal immigrants should Moscow try to flood the country with asylum seekers.

The interior ministry has drawn up plans for a barrier closing off 10 to 20 per cent of the frontier, including the most significant crossings, after the leaders of its largest political parties signalled their approval for the project.

“It is about being able to make sure that the border is well controlled and we can pre-emptively influence the situations that may occur at the border,” Sanna Marin, the prime minister, said.

The country has earmarked €139 million for the first phase of the project and €6 million for an initial “test section”, envisaged to cover one or two miles, which could be built in the southeast next year. The entire fence could cost several hundred million euros.

Finland’s traditional posture of wary ambivalence towards Russia has hardened markedly since it invaded Ukraine, with public opinion and the political elite swinging firmly behind joining Nato.

In recent months the government has progressively tightened the entry rules for Russian citizens, starting with the indefinite suspension of the high-speed Allegro train between St Petersburg and Helsinki, inaugurated by President Putin in 2010.

Three weeks ago Finland closed its border to all Russians with short-term “tourist” visas for Europe’s free-travel Schengen zone, in effect shutting the last land route into the European Union for Russians fleeing military mobilisation.

Yesterday President Niinisto of Finland, who is in charge of foreign policy, said the war in Ukraine had brought about a “new era where we are being tested”, although he reminded Finns that “Russia is always our neighbour”.

The idea of an extensive border fence has only recently found favour with the government. Last December, as Belarus was accused of flying-in non-European migrants and sending them across its borders into Poland and the Baltic states as a form of “hybrid warfare”, the Finnish opposition called for tighter controls on the Russian frontier to prevent Moscow from adopting similar tactics.

Poland, Lithuania and Latvia began fencing off their borders with Belarus, and Estonia started work on a 2.5m-high barbed-wire fence that will ultimately stretch across half its land border with Russia.

At the time Marin rejected the proposals for similar measures in her country, telling The Times: “Of course we have to have legislation in place for this kind of situation, but you have to have diplomatic dialogue. You have to find solutions in other ways to try to combat this kind of situation. This isn’t the situation at the Finnish border. We don’t have a problem.”

Since then, however, the situation has changed rapidly, with the influx of tens of thousands of Russians escaping the Putin regime and heightened tensions between the two countries.

On Tuesday Marin announced that all the parties in Finland’s parliament had given their assent to the plan for a border fence and the first tranche of funding would be allocated on November 1. Cross-party support is essential because the country is due to hold a general election in April.

Krista Mikkonen, the interior minister, told the Uutissuomalai news agency that the fence would be supplemented with surveillance technology.

Matti Pitkaniitty, the head of the Finnish border guard’s international affairs division, told Yle, the public broadcaster: “The world has evolved and our basic conclusion is that our traditional methods, our traditional way of working, are not up to these tasks that we see in the world today.”

France and Germany cancelled a summit due to be held next week amid tension over efforts to avert a winter energy crisis. President Macron and Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, are at odds over calls backed by France and 12 other EU countries for a price cap on gas imports and Germany’s unilateral €200 billion energy bailout plan. A diplomatic source said the French were angry about decisions made in Berlin without consultation with Paris.