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Finland has said that Russia is allowing undocumented migrants to cross its eastern border, vowing action against what it said was a sharp increase in the number of arrivals.
Finland’s border guards said 39 asylum seekers without documents crossed from Russia on Monday and another 21 on Tuesday morning. That compares with a normal weekly total of less than 10.
The migrants were originally from countries such as Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Turkey, the border guards said.
“The number has grown significantly in a short time. Russian authorities have changed the way they work to allow travel to Finland despite a lack of documents, which is illegal entry,” said Mari Rantanen, Finland’s interior minister.
She added on Tuesday that she would soon put forward a proposal to limit border crossings or centralise asylum applications.
The sharp increase, albeit from a low level, is reminiscent of the 2021 migrant crisis in which Belarus, a close ally of Russia, sent thousands of asylum seekers from the Middle East and Africa into Lithuania, Poland and Latvia. Russia also did the same in 2015-16 into the far north of both Finland and Norway.
Petteri Orpo, Finland’s prime minister, said on Tuesday that it looked like a similar situation to 2015-16. “In that sense, this seems like a very conscious decision,” he added.
The rise in migrants also comes after a gas pipeline and data cable between Finland and Estonia were damaged last month. Finnish authorities claim the damage was caused by the anchor of a Chinese-registered vessel with ill-defined links to Russia.
“There is no grand master plan from Russia other than at the conceptual level, to destabilise stuff as inexpensively as possible,” said Charly Salonius-Pasternak, a leading researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.
He added that Russia’s approach appeared to be: “Let’s make life for our neighbour difficult, but in a way that doesn’t involve the military.”
Finland became the 31st member of Nato in April, and officials in Helsinki were surprised that the Nordic country suffered few reprisals during its application process to join the western defence alliance.
But there is a growing feeling that Russia is now testing Finland through so-called hybrid attacks, non-military measures that tend to have an element of deniability.
Finland’s border guards said that until recently, Russian authorities had not allowed travel to a Finnish crossing point unless the passenger had the required travel documents.
“In recent months, the actions of the Russian authorities have changed, at least on the border with southeastern Finland. Unlike before, they have allowed travel despite a lack of documents,” the border guards said.
Finland, which is renowned for its comprehensive approach to preparedness, changed its laws last year as a result of the Belarusian migrant crisis to allow it to take action more quickly.
Rantanen said that Finland could direct asylum seekers to a specific border crossing, limit the number of crossings, or close certain crossings under a proposal due to be issued shortly.
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