Finland will begin building fences on its border with Russia in the winter of 2024, Report informs, citing the Finnish Border Service.
The country’s parliament allocated 139 million euros for the fence construction project.
A part of the fence has already been built near the city of Imatra.
The Border Service believes that the funds should be enough to build approximately 70 km of barrier fencing. Of these, 52 km will be built in South-Eastern Finland, where the most popular border checkpoints in terms of passenger traffic are located. Eight kilometers will be built in North Karelia and five kilometers in Kainuu and Lapland.
Now, new routes for crossing wetlands are being checked in the area of the city of Salla in northern Finland, the department specified.
In June 2022, the Finnish Ministry of Internal Affairs announced the government's plans to install a fence on the eastern border to prepare the country to combat “hybrid threats,” including using the “migration issue to exert political pressure.”