Russia just cannot be trusted. Over and over and over again, they show this to the world.
Countries need to stop giving Russia ‘one more chance’. Treat the Russian government like the fraudulent, evil pariahs that they reveal themselves to be.
Yeah, I cannot even understand what the future should look like with Russia. What can they do to gain any trust, or will we just keep going in a world where the West just doesn’t have any relations with Russia? I guess it worked in the 1900s in some way.
Russia as a federated state has to fall apart. No way around that.
It should have happened after the second world war, but Stalin managed to flip his colors to look like a reasonable option and persisted in the state. Now the debt comes with accumulated interest.
Lies, gentlemen.
What’s your point?
Sorry, thought the quote was more obvious.
This isn’t just a matter of trust in Russian government.
Many Russians and Finns are connected one way or the other - quite some Finns have relatives in Russia (especially Karelia and Saint Petersburg), and quite some Russians have relatives and close ones in Finland. This kind of shitshow breaks down families and leads to immense levels of suffering, and that’s not “all Putin’s fault” (even though he did a lot of shit to get us where we are)
Russia has shown interest in solving the issue together, and Finland works on legislation to stop asylum seekers without closing the border.
But the idiocy of what happened yesterday is hard to describe. “We will keep borders open unless they are gonna come again”. OF COURSE THEY WILL, THEY WAITED ON THAT BORDER FFS. At that point, Russian government can do very little to stop these particular people from going there.
Not to mention this is extremely inhumane on the side of Finnish government and only comes as a result of immigration crisis caused by uneven distribution on asylum seekers inside the EU - but as sealing borders with EU, from which majority of them come, is super impractical and politically consequential, they are gonna focus on just a few, the minority, coming through Russia. It is reactionary measure against a long overlooked issue.
well, wtf did they think would happen?
Where are the migrants from? I assume they aren’t Russian nationals. It seems odd that Russia is trying to use them to bolster their own population. I get that this is probably an attempt to destabilize a Western country, but still Russia could use the people.
In local news our national broadcaster and right wing rags have reported that most of these newcomers are from Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia.
Source: I’m a finn myself.
Here’s also a link to a relevant news story from our national broadcaster YLE’s english version, if you’re interested to read more: https://yle.fi/a/74-20062259
Hmm interesting, thank you for the article. I wonder if this is more of a Russian trying to get rid of migrants of a mistrusted group and have a convention enemy to push them on to or a planned operation to draw them to Russia to use them as international political fodder.
Perhaps both. There are also news reports that some of these migrants now stuck in Russia are being pressured by russian military authorities to sign contracts to go fight in Ukraine, in exchange getting Russian citizenship later. More cannon fodder to the grinder…
Migrants have always been a big part of Russia’s workforce, and while the population’s opinion on them varies (as it does everywhere), Russian government didn’t show much hostility to migrants, and they are vital for Russian economy.
Getting rid of migrants is undermining Russia.
It’s just busses of migrants but Russia instead of a republican
Perkele?
It’s just an attempt to sow discord in Finland. Nothing more.
Russia isn’t using them because Russia’s calcified bureaucracy is very procedure-oriented, even if not very law-oriented, and the procedures for conscripting non-citizens are non-existent.
I just read an article a week ago about Nepalese fighting for Russia so I think that if Russia wanted to impress them they would.
Hiring is different from conscription, both in practical and procedural terms.
I feel it’s a huge overstatement and reactionary policy.
A dozen or two of migrants a day will not kill Finland in any way. Way, WAY more of them came through other EU countries, yet they’re obvioisly not gonna shut EU borders.
This is very political.
Why can’t Russia take care of them?
Because they are already there and don’t break any laws. It’s not illegal to be in Russia, including near the border (although it does and always did enforce additional control in regions next to borders)
Russia can restrict new people coming into the country (a measure that will be very bad for Russia itself), but it can’t just remove the people that are already legally in.
They could stop driving them to the border for a start.
Not that it’s a Russian State Bus.
Those are commercial, and legally grey, not black.
And you can’t stop all buses - absolute majority of them drive legitimate Finnish residents, and asylum seekers will just switch to cars.
Not even refugees want to live in Russia, and Russia doesn’t want them either.
It’s about precedent. Finland already have their fucked up neighbour Sweden as a cautionary tale when it comes to refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants from the ME/Africa.
The point is, it comes from Finland as part of sudden shift from welcoming everyone longer than Finland can afford, to being shut off to compensate, and not from Russia being evil and waging a hybrid war trying to destabilize the country.
Radical turns like these are quite common as part of right-wingers coming to power, and they are pretty much always detrimental and irrational.
As much as Russia has a lot to be blamed for, here it acts as scapegoat to cover for right-wing crackdowns. It’s important never to take automatic stances, even in relation to pariah states, while keeping vigilance to see when they really try to strike.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Finland’s government has decided to seal again, effective Friday, the Nordic country’s entire eastern frontier due to a continuing influx of migrants at the two crossing points on the border with Russia that were reopened on a temporary basis early Thursday.
The Finnish Border Guard reported that dozens of migrants without proper documentation or visas had arrived at the two checkpoints by late Thursday.
The number of migrants was predicted to increase rapidly at Vaalimaa and Niirala checkpoints, prompting the Finnish government’s to react quickly and close them as of 8 p.m. Friday until January 14, Rantanen said.
At the end of November, Orpo’s government opted to close the entire 1,340-kilometer border for at least two weeks over concerns that Moscow was using migrants to destabilize Finland in an alleged act of “hybrid warfare.”
Earlier December, Finnish authorities said the vast majority of the migrants who arrived in November hailed from three countries: Syria, Somalia and Yemen.
Finland, a nation of 5.6 million people, makes up a significant part of NATO’s northeastern flank and acts as the European Union’s external border in the north.
The original article contains 393 words, the summary contains 184 words. Saved 53%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I think they spelled “refugees” wrong. /s
They could build a wall of metal bands that would stretch the length of the country
