From: imbibe@mindspring.com   
      
   Finland plans to start building a fence on Russian border next year   
   By James Frater and Xiaofei Xu, CNN, Nov 18, 2022   
      
   Finland, one of the few NATO countries sharing a border with Russia, has   
   announced a proposal to spend 139 million euros on building barrier fences on   
   its eastern border with Russia in 2023, the Finnish Border Guard said Friday.   
      
   “In the assessment of the Finnish Border Guard, the changed security   
   environment has made it necessary to construct a barrier fence along part of   
   the eastern border,” the border guard said in a statement.   
      
   “If Russia reduces its border control, this may cause additional pressure at   
   the Finnish end to control illegal entry. Finland can't rely on the   
   effectiveness of Russian border control,” the statement said.   
      
   The planned border fence will stretch for a distance of 130-260 km (80-161 mi)   
   – only part of the 830-mile-long border it shares with Russia – and will   
   come with accompanying surveillance equipment and a patrol road as well.   
      
   The construction of such a fence is expected to take 3-4 years and it can   
   endure for roughly 50 years, according to the Finnish Border Guard.   
      
   A pilot section will be built in Imatra starting in spring 2023.   
      
   Helsinki has increasingly restricted crossings on the eastern border it shares   
   with Russia.   
      
   The Finnish border was one of the few entry points for Russians after many   
   Western countries shut their air space and borders to Russian planes in   
   response to the Ukraine invasion.   
      
   It closed its border to Russia at the end of September, around the time   
   traffic over the Finland-Russia land frontier intensified as Russians tried to   
   flee Putin’s “partial mobilization” of hundreds of thousands of citizens   
   to fight in the war.   
      
   “The Government deems that the Russian mobilization and the rapidly   
   increasing volume of tourists arriving in Finland and transiting via Finland   
   endanger Finland’s international position and international relations,”   
   Finland’s Ministry of Foreign    
   Affairs wrote in a statement at the time.   
      
   It said while the “resolution aims to stop tourism and related transit from   
   Russia altogether” it “will not prevent traveling when it is deemed   
   necessary for humanitarian reasons, for national interests or for meeting   
   Finland’s international    
   obligations.”   
      
   According to a November press release by the Finnish Border Guard, “the   
   amount of entries has decreased significantly after the restrictions came into   
   force.”   
      
   On Sept 29, some 8,583 Russian citizens crossed into Finland’s eastern   
   border from Russia. That figure dropped to 1,700 when border restrictions   
   began on September 30, according to the border guard’s statistics.   
      
   On Friday, the Finnish Border Guard’s head of international affairs Matti   
   Pitkaniitty said on Twitter that the proposed barrier fence “is much more   
   than just a fence. It is whole new border infrastructure and new approach to   
   border surveillance.   
      
   https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/18/europe/finland-border-fence-russi   
   -intl/index.html   
      
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