Russia said Wednesday a humanitarian emergency was unfolding at one of its checkpoints on the Artic border with Finland, where it said hundreds of migrants were stranded in freezing temperatures.
Over 500 asylum seekers have crossed from Russia to Finland since November, Finnish public broadcaster YLE says, mostly from Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq.
Helsinki has accused Moscow of pushing them there deliberately, which Russia denies.
The leader of Russia’s Murmansk region, which borders Finland, Andrey Chibis, stated that “there is a situation at the border with Finland, at the Salla checkpoint, which can be described as a humanitarian crisis.”
He said, “About 300 people from more than ten foreign countries have been waiting to cross the border for days, not hours.”
He blamed Finland for not letting them in.
While the Salla checkpoint is still open, Finland shut down four of its border crossings with Russia last week in response to the influx of migrants.
It accused Moscow of trying to destabilise the country in retaliation for it joining NATO.
Helsinki’s ties with Moscow have deteriorated massively since Russia launched its assault on Ukraine last February.
In April, Finland abandoned decades of military non-alignment and joined the Western-led NATO military alliance, prompting Moscow to warn of “countermeasures.”
Western countries accused Russia’s close ally Belarus of pushing tens of thousands of undocumented migrants across its border towards Poland and Lithuania in 2021, in retaliation for EU sanctions.
