Finland is building the first stretch of a fence on its border with Russia on Friday, less than two weeks after it joined the NATO military alliance to complete a security U-turn taken in response to the war in Ukraine.
Fearing retaliation from the east following its NATO application, the government decided last year to construct the barrier, primarily in case Russia moved to flood the border with migrants.
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Finland aims to guard against a repeat of events on the European Union’s eastern frontier in Poland in winter 2021, when the bloc accused neighbouring Belarus – a staunch Russian ally – of engineering a crisis by flying in migrants from the Middle East giving them visas and pushing them across the border.
Read more: Reuters
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