The influx of Arab refugees to the Russian-Finnish border is under the full control of the FSB — Russian security forces are redirecting asylum seekers in the European Union from the Belarusian-Polish border to Finland. The same structures helped organize the crisis on the border between Belarus and Poland in 2021.
This was reported by The Insider.
One of the smugglers, who made money by transporting migrants from Belarus to the border with Poland, told the publication that in early November he was contacted by "Russian officers" and told that now Russia is also letting migrants through.
According to him, he brought people only to the Russian part of the border, and then the Russian border guards "take care" of them — they give them bicycles to cross the Finnish border.
Another smuggler explained that the control of migrant traffic begins as soon as refugees arrive in Russia — already at the airport "some colonel meets them and helps them cross the border."
Due to the closure of the Finnish border, the carriers are once again offering refugees a difficult and dangerous path to the European Union — they send migrants to Belarus, leave them in the forest near the Polish border and show the approximate direction that they will have to follow tens of kilometers.
What is happening on the Russian-Finnish border
In recent years, Finland has been preparing for the fact that Russia will send a large number of asylum seekers to the border. The Russians have already done this on the Finnish border during the migration crisis of 2015.
Last month, border guards began to report that an unusually large number of people who did not have entry documents were trying to enter Finland through the checkpoints on the southeastern border.
On November 15, the Prime Minister of Finland stated that Russia helps illegal migrants enter the country, including citizens of the Russian Federation, countries of the Middle East and Africa. According to him, Russian border guards are involved in this. Belarus also operates according to a similar scheme, pushing migrants to the borders with Lithuania, Latvia and Poland. Due to this surge in illegal migration, Finland decided to close four border points, and on November 19, the authorities sent the military to the Vartius checkpoint on the border with Russia and erected fences to stop the influx of refugees.
On November 22, Finland announced the closure of three more border crossing points, and on November 28 , the last crossing point — "Raya-Joosepi", which was the most difficult to access — was also closed.
On December 14, the Finnish government opened the Vaalimaa and Niirala border crossing points for Russians for a month, however, as soon as they opened, asylum seekers went to the borders in a large stream, so the country closed these crossing points again from December 15, and the Minister of the Interior of Finland Marie Rantanen called the situation at the border a threat to national security.