• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Eastern Border Barrier

Finland said it had begun construction of a 200-kilometer fence on the Russian border as Helsinki fears Moscow could use migrant flows at the frontier for political purposes. Terrain work were set to begin on February 28 "with forest clearance and will proceed in such a way that road construction and fence installation can be started in March," the Finnish Border Guard said. The pilot project at the Imatra border crossing is expected to be completed by the end of June, it added. Construction of a further 70 kilometers, mainly in southeastern Finland, will take place between 2023 and 2025.

The Finnish government prepared a draft budget for 2023, which provides funds to build a fence on the border with Russia. In the draft budget of Finland, the government has allocated €6 million for the Eastern Border Barrier pilot project, which provides for the construction of a fence on the border with Russia. The construction of the fence will begin with a pilot section of 3 kilometers in length in 2023. The pilot will test the construction method, functionality, border control, and model of cooperation with the owners of borderland plots.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland, the construction of a fence on the country's eastern border will begin with a three-kilometre-long pilot section. In addition, the same pointed out that the pilot fence will test the construction method, the functionality of the planned solution, and the implementation of border control during construction, among others, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.

Commenting on the decision of the government, the Minister of Interior of Finland, Krista Mikkonen, said that the construction of the fence on the eastern border next year will be based on the experiences gained during the pilot stage. “The Border Guard plans to begin construction of the fence on the eastern border next year based on the experiences gained in the pilot. The Ministry of the Interior has included the funding required to begin construction of the fence in an amendment to the budget proposal, which the Government will submit to Parliament later this year,� the statement of Mikkonen reads.

The Foreign Ministry notes that a fence on the eastern border will prevent illegal border crossings, accelerate the detection of illegal entries, prevent large-scale instrumentalised migration, as well as improve the effectiveness of territorial surveillance.

The Ministry revealed that in line with the Border Guard's plan, the fence would extend along around 15 per cent of the eastern border, and the same pointed out that the aim is to build the fence along border sections that are the most critical.The Border Guard has considered the fence necessary and in September proposed to fence part of the border with Russia to prevent illegal immigration. A 130–260 km section of the border would be fenced off, which would take three to four years and cost hundreds of millions of euros. The plan is to quickly build a pilot section on the border, the length of which, according to STT's data, would be three kilometers.

There is a consensus in the board about the experimental part of Aida, but no decision had actually been made about it yet. The barrier would be a whole made up of a fence, technical control and a road.

The Finnish Border Guard has assessed that the construction of a barrier on part of the eastern border is necessary due to the changes in the Finnish security environment. The fence will not be built along the entire length of the border, but in riskier areas, such as border crossing points and their adjacent areas. The main part of the fence would be in the focus area of border control in Southeast Finland. In this situation, our eastern border does not differ from other parts of the eastern land border of the European Union, where barriers have already been built.

According to the now-completed plan, the fence would be built for a distance of approximately 130 to 260 kilometers along our 1,300-kilometer-long eastern border. However, the fence is not a solution on its own. It would be connected to an entity that would take into account human resources, tactics, and technology. The barrier fence itself would consist of a fence, technical control, and road. This entity would significantly support the management of disruptions at the border. The physical barrier itself is necessary in a situation of large-scale entry into the country, in which case it acts as a blocking device and as an element that guides possible crowds of people.

The decision to build a fence on the eastern border should be made at the political level, because the project is quite far-reaching and expensive; the estimated costs are in the hundreds of millions of euros. The Finnish Border Guard is ready to begin building the eastern border barrier fence during this year. It is estimated that the planned barrier fence will take 3 to 4 years to be completed, depending on the funding available and the smooth running of the procurement process. The detailed plan is an official document to be kept secret in accordance with paragraphs 5 and 9 of Section 24.1 of the Act on the Publicity of Official Documents.

Finland, which became a NATO member last year, is making quiet arrangements with landowners to enable the nation’s defense forces (FDF) to build barriers on the border with Russia, the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper reported on 29 September 2023. Dozens of these agreements have been reached since the outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the paper wrote.

The Finnish Defense Forces launched the program six years ago, but the attitude of landowners towards it “has clearly been more positive” recently, Lieutenant Colonel Sauli Hongisto, who is in charge of construction at the FDF, told the outlet. “People understand what the land use agreement is about,” he said, apparently referring to Moscow’s military operation against Kiev. The deals would allow the Finnish military to build fortifications and hold drills on private land, bypassing the legal requirement for the government to introduce the Emergency Powers Act for such activities to be carried out.

Each landowner, who enters an agreement that spans 20 years, receives a signing bonus of €750. Once construction begins on their land, the individual will be entitled to a payment of €4,800 per hectare used by the military. The damage done to the property in the process of erecting the fortifications will also be compensated, Helsingin Sanomat wrote.

Hongisto clarified that deals don’t necessarily mean that construction on private land “in eastern Finland” and some other parts of the country would begin immediately. By signing them, the FDF is simply seeking “an arrangement for a situation when a potential crisis begins to emerge and defense preparations have to be started, but the necessary powers under the Emergency Powers Act aren’t yet in force,” he explained.