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Finland announced this Friday building a barbed wire fence along the border with Russia from 2023, justified by the security concerns of the Nordic country after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The first three kilometers of the fence will be placed in the summer of 2023 at a crossing point in the city of Imatra (east). Eventually, its extension could extend to a maximum of 200 kilometers, the Associated Press (AP) news agency indicated.
the Finnish border with Russia, which extends over 1,340 kilometersit is the largest among all the countries of the European Union that border the Slavic country.
In October, the Finnish Prime Minister, Sanna Marin, said that there was a consensus among the deputies for the construction of a fence. covering some areas of the border with Russiain a project with an estimated cost of 380 million euros that should be completed in 2026.
According to Marin, the main purpose of the fence is to help border guards monitor and prevent large-scale illegal migration.
His government has not publicly referred to Russia’s war in Ukraine or Finland’s decision to join NATO to justify building the fence. Nevertheless, Helsinki has expressed concern due to the evolution of the situation in Russia and Ukraine, and even before the threats of reprisals from Moscow in case the neighboring country joined the Western military alliance.
Politicians and experts have spoken of the near impossibility of building a fence along the entire eastern border of the country, which runs through dense forests. In some places, the Russian-Finnish border is only marked by wooden posts with barriers intended to stop movement of cattle????????
The fence, initially proposed by the Finnish border guard, should be built in stages, from a length of five kilometers to 52 kilometers.
It will be located mainly in southeastern Finland, where most of the border traffic with Russia takes place, but there are still small sections to be built. in the North Karelia region and in the Lapland regionIn the Arctic.
From the perspective of the border authorities, the construction of this structure should allow a significant reinforcement of border control.
The fence will be three meters high, with a spike cannon extension at the top. In addition to motorized patrols, the Finnish Border Guard uses electronic instruments and other tools to monitor activity at the border.
Source: Observadora
