Finland has a 1300 km border with Russia. It should now be secured with a fence. Helsinki is based on Warsaw's reaction to the refugee crisis triggered by Belarus. The new Polish border guard should be ready by the end of June.
Finland's government is preparing a law to make the border with Russia more secure by building a fence. This is Finland's response to fears that Russia could use hybrid warfare to attract migrants in a targeted manner in order to persuade them to cross the border into Finland or the EU. Belarus demonstrated this in the migration crisis on the borders with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. Interior Minister Krista Mikkonen said the government, on the advice of the border guard, will decide where barriers should be placed on the 1,300-kilometer border with Russia.
The exclusion zone on Poland's border with Belarus will be lifted on July 1st. As work on a high fence along the border is well advanced, there is no longer a need for the restrictions, the Interior Ministry in Warsaw said on Tuesday. However, in the future you may only approach the fence up to 200 meters.
In late summer and autumn last year, the situation on the Polish-Belarusian border escalated: thousands of people tried to enter the EU illegally. The European Union accused the Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko of bringing migrants from crisis regions to the EU's external border in an organized manner in order to put pressure on the West.
Poland initially declared a state of emergency in a three-kilometer-wide strip along the border, later the area was declared a restricted zone. A total of 183 localities are affected. So far, non-residents and helpers have not been allowed in, journalists only in guided tours of the border guards.
The Polish-Belarusian border is 418 kilometers long, of which 186 kilometers is overland, the rest through lakes and rivers. Since the beginning of the year, Poland has been erecting a 5.50 meter high fence with motion detectors and cameras on the land sections of the border. Construction should be completed by the end of June.
