Helsinki's decision to close four of the country's nine border crossings with Russia to stem the flow of undocumented migrants and refugees into Finland is impacting residents with relatives in Russia. At a protest in the capital, people raised concerns about a new 'Iron Curtain'.
The comments here are disgusting, is it so hard to distinguish between the people and the government? Especially if we are talking about an autocracy and the people who have fled or are trying to flee.
Even if you are a russophobe you should support them, making it easy for russia to keep its internal victims is only good for russia, and it is especially bad for ukraine when it involves male victims of forced conscription.
It's hard to distinguish the people and the government, when the people are protesting about what a democratic country did to protect it's citizens against an autocratic warmongering state, it's aggression and subversion stategies.
In other words, they should do a protest like that in Moscow, see what happens.
It's not russophobia. Nobody sane is afraid of russia anymore. But hostile actions must meet reactions.
It's almost like that's my point. They're protesting that Finland reacts to hybrid warfare by Russia... by protesting in front of the Finnish parliament.
Of course they wouldn't do that in Moscow to stop the reason for the closure because they'd be clobbered into the pavement.
That doesn't mean aimless punitive action. Finland closing the border accomplishes nothing other than separate people on both sides of the border from their relatives and loved ones.
"Punitive action"? Every nation has a right to control their borders. Maybe if Russia didn't manufacture a crisis in a ceaseless destabilization effort there wouldn't be a need for such actions. But, quite honestly, "if Russia didn't" starts to become the "humanity now if Russia didn't" meme.
The thing is: crisis or no crisis there's no need. It's Russia's fault the situation is like this, but that doesn't mean the Russian community in Finland has to suffer for it.