STOCKHOLM, November 20. /TASS/. Officers of the Finnish Border Guard in Lapland have started erecting temporary barriers at the Salla crossing on the border with Russia, the agency wrote on its page on X (formerly Twitter).
"An official support team of the Defense Forces has arrived at the Salla border crossing. We begin to jointly build temporary barriers outside the border crossing point", it blogged.
The Finnish Iltalehti newspaper said earlier on Monday, citing its sources, that the country’s authorities plan to close the entire border with Russian on Wednesday night. Early on November 18, Finland closed four border checkpoints on the eastern border - Vaalimaa, Nuijamaa, Imatre, and Niirala. In this way, according to Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, the authorities were reacting to the influx of nationals from third countries to the eastern border of Finland. According to Finnish Interior Minister Mari Rantanen, the decision is in effect until February 18, 2024.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Finland's decision to close the border crossings on the border with Russia creates new dividing lines in Europe, and government agencies in Moscow will come up with a response to these actions. Russia is very disappointed with Finland’s decision to potentially close all remaining border crossings, Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
"It causes nothing but deep regret, since we had long-standing, very good relations with Finland, pragmatic, based on mutual respect. Of course, we regret that these relations have been replaced by an entirely Russophobic position, which the leaders of this neighboring country have now begun to adhere to. Regretfully, this is the situation we are in today," he said.
"It is unlikely that we can influence [this situation - TASS] now, because there is no dialogue as such, through no fault of ours. Actually, we were not the initiators of curtailing the dialogue," he said.