I would even say Russia got exactly the response they wanted. The situation and the government's response is already taking up all the news-space in Finnish media, the response by Finland is causing internal turmoil, and Russian media can point to Finland's response as another example of "unfriendly western actions against Russia", which only serves to further strengthen Putin's political position. He can use this e.g. as one example in a list when calling for a general mobilisation.
The Finnish governments decision to close ALL border points seems questionable in its own right, especially as the activity at Raja-Jooseppi seemed minimal.
> and Russian media can point to Finland's response as another example of "unfriendly western actions against Russia"
They do that 24/7 anyway so who cares. It's a joke here in Bulgaria that if somebody coughs and sneezes the Russians will say "they got cold because of the hostile Western nations!" and I find the joke hilarious because it's 100% on point. Whatever happens in the world, they are the first to react and immediately spin it as a sign of weakness or power play of the Western nations.
They are going full throttle on the propaganda and media influence war and I have to say, with some success here and there.
But them blaming everyone but themselves is nothing new, historically. Most people with a basic grasp of culture and history are not impressed by Russia's same old tricks.
> decision to close ALL border points seems questionable in its own right
And what would you do?
Let's assume for the sake of the argument that Russia does indeed use illegal immigrants in an attempt to sow chaos. How would you counter that? Not like many of these people want to integrate -- many of them can't even read or write... And no this is not a conspiracy theory, a lot of such cases have been documented but for one reason or another rarely make the popular headlines (as a side topic, I am really curious as to why).
Quite frankly I don't think any country other than Russia is going to be on Russias side here. If you want to be on good terms with your neighbours, maybe don't invade them?
Russia is in NO position to even remotely criticise Finlands decision here, and they won't be in a position to do so for decades to come.
If you want the domestic equivalent: that is like your neighbour shitting on your other neighbours doormat each day and then scoffing at you for not greeting them in the elevator.
Sure they can scoff. It just makes them look more crazy. And if you care about them being able to scoff, you should probably do some reflection as well.
> Sure they can scoff. It just makes them look more crazy. And if you care about them being able to scoff, you should probably do some reflection as well.
The response from Russia is not the issue here. As tovej hinted above, the thing has been going on in local politics for a week or so with some ugly things involved; some politicians and their supporters cannot keep their heads straight, among other things, including threats, disinformation, and deep fakes.
I wonder what prompts the people from horn of Africa to go seek asylum this route. If their goal is EU, Russia itself is already farther than eg. Greece... and I think you have more 'fun' dangerous places on the way
Did they actually want to go to Russia, not EU, and then got unilaterally deported to Finland? Seems like politically wild move in any other age (but considering it's Putin it's just based trolling)
I did some digging because I was curious. From the Horn, you'd go north through Egypt and Israel. From there, to get to Turkey (and then Greece), the close route would go through Syria. Not a great choice given the civil war.
You can swing around Syria, but it takes you farther from Greece. If you still wanted to get to Greece, you'd have to cross through Turkey and get across the border to Greece, who has installed fences (and probably other impediments). Once in Greece, they do deport, so that's always a risk.
Stepping back, once you go around Syria, you're fairly close to Russia (much closer than Greece). It's also a longer and harder to secure border (the Turkey-Greece border is very, very narrow). Get into Russia, swing to the east to avoid the Ukrainian war, skip past Belarus, Estonia and Latvia because of existing refugee issues and Finland is the next stop.
I think the EU must have that border locked down, because the wikipedia page for the Belarus-EU border crisis shows refugees from Istanbul getting to Belarus via Russia.
The TLDR is that getting into the EU via Russia appears to be a significant route. I'm guessing due to border lockdowns in southern EU countries.
