The government of Finland has terminated the agreement on bilateral border cooperation with Russia. The Russian Federation was the first to terminate this agreement — at the end of October, the Russian side sent a notification of its decision to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland.
It is noted that Helsinki declared invalid the resolution on the implementation of the agreement between the governments of Finland and the Russian Federation. The termination will take effect on January 24 next year.
The agreement concluded in 2012 provided for the development of cross-border cooperation between the countries.
Then the parties agreed to jointly deal with the socio-economic development of the border regions, create conditions for tourism and transportation, in particular, to arrange checkpoints at the borders. Also, the states were supposed to help each other in the event of forest fires and emergency situations, to warn about natural disasters and man-made accidents.
- In early November, border guards reported that in recent months, an unusually large number of people without entry documents had tried to enter Finland through checkpoints on the southeastern border. Later, the Prime Minister of Finland stated that Russia helps illegal migrants, including citizens of the Russian Federation, countries of the Middle East and Africa, to enter the country. According to him, Russian border guards are involved in this. Belarus operates according to a similar scheme, pushing out migrants at the borders with Lithuania, Latvia and Poland. Due to this surge in illegal migration, Finland decided to close border crossings.