A government's asylum processing capacity is finite: push enough unauthorized migrants across a border in a concentrated window and that ceiling becomes a destabilization instrument. Finland, which holds 833 miles of frontier with Russia (the longest of any EU or NATO member state), treated that mechanism as the primary threat to defend against. The country has now completed roughly 124 miles of fencing along its eastern edge, supplementing a full land border closure enacted in 2023.
Petri Hakkarainen, political director for the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, detailed the security calculus to Fox News Digital. When Finland joined NATO in April 2023, over 1,300 migrants without visas arrived at its eastern checkpoints almost immediately. Hakkarainen described the pattern as Russia pushing people toward the border and forcing the Finnish government to absorb the processing burden. A high-volume influx, he explained, could destabilize Finnish society if carried out at sufficient scale.
How Finland changed the legal framework
Closing the border checkpoints has proven "very effective," Hakkarainen said. Finland's parliament reinforced the closure with the Border Security Act, a temporary law authorizing border authorities to restrict asylum applications and turn migrants back when a foreign actor is determined to be funneling people across the border as a destabilization measure. The legislation drew scrutiny over potential conflicts with international human rights law. Hakkarainen acknowledged the tension but said national security and sovereignty carried more weight, with broad majority support behind the act.
Moscow filed a formal complaint after the 2023 closure, calling it "Russophobic." The Kremlin expressed "deep regret" and claimed the move dismantled decades of pragmatic, mutually respectful relations. Finland's government called the migrant flows hybrid warfare. Moscow denied it.
Western officials have accused Russia of running broader destabilization campaigns across Europe, including disinformation and state-sponsored economic coercion. Hakkarainen argued Finland's position on Russia's frontier gives its read on Moscow specific weight within the wider alliance. Russia, he said, represents a long-term threat to transatlantic security, extending well beyond Ukraine. Finland's security seriousness, he added, is precisely what allows Finns to lead normal lives next to such a neighbor.