Finland begins building fence on Russian border

Finland has started construction of fence along eastern border with Russia, said Finnish Border Guard in a press release on Friday.

The border fence will improve Finland´s border surveillance and is a significant part of Finland’s ability to maintain a credible border security level.

The barrier fence is a new and significant part of border control. It will support management of disruptions in a decisive way and is an essential complement in situations, in which Finland is exposed to instrumental or otherwise widespread illegal entry.

“The barrier fence will not only significantly improve border surveillance in management of disruptions, but also on a wider scale. The technical surveillance will improve further,” said Colonel Mika Rytkönen, Commander of the South-East Finland Border Guard District.

The ongoing construction of the pilot version of the barrier fence in Pelkola, Imatra, is an important phase in the project’s progress.

The approximately 3 kilometres long pilot fence located nearby Imatra’s border crossing point is estimated to be complete in June 2023.

“The pilot offers us the chance to find out the best practices for management, implementation, level of costs and the actual construction of the fence. Through this we can ensure success in the next phases of this project,” said Brigadier General Jari Tolppanen, Head of the Technical Division of the Border Guard Headquarters.

The landowners were consulted before the decision to build the fence was made. After the pilot project is finished, they will be paid a lump sum for the damage and inconvenience caused by the project.

The imposed land area in addition to removed plantlets and trees will be considered. The compensation also includes a default interest for the duration of the construction. The tax authorities have issued guidelines for the taxation of the lump sum.

Before the actual construction work was commenced, the area was cleared out of trees. The works and acquisition of equipment was put out to tender as public procurements in accordance with the Public Defence and Security Procurements Act.

“The level of costs achieved in the public tendering of the pilot project was considerably lower than the project’s budget. However, no direct conclusions of the forthcoming level of costs can be made based on this, since several of the target areas that are built later on are located in areas that are considerably more challenging to reach. For instance, wetlands will need to be crossed and new electricity connections must be ordered for them,” said Project Manager Ismo Kurki.

Next, a pilot version of a pontoon road made of concrete aimed for crossing wetlands is planned to be carried out in the areas nearby Salla border crossing point in Lapland in August–November 2023.

The aim of this is to find an optimal solution to crossing wetlands. At the end of the year 2023, implementation of targets at the border crossing points and the areas nearby is commenced. The total length of these targets will be approximately 75 kilometres. Each border guard district has their own target areas.

In November 2022, the government in its budget proposal for 2023 proposed EUR 139 million in funding for the implementation of the most important target areas of the eastern border barrier fence.

Earlier in October, 2022, a proposal to build a fence along parts of Finland's border with Russia received wide support from parties in the Parliament.