Radio | News week in plain Finnish | Saturday 13 January 2024

Eastern border of Finland.

The topic of the first News Week is Finland’s eastern border, i.e. the border between Finland and Russia. The border is now closed. Closing the border hinders the lives of Finnish-Russian families, for example. The Finnish government says that the border cannot be opened yet due to Finland’s security. Now we tell you how closing the border affects people’s lives and why Finland closed the eastern border.

The eastern border remains closed

Finland’s eastern border is closed. This week, the Finnish government decided that the border will be closed at least until February 11. The border has been closed almost all the time since November. Only freight trains can cross the border, not people.

The Finno-Russians are upset

Many Finnish-Russian families are upset that Finland’s eastern border is closed. Many have not seen their relatives who live across the border for a long time. That is why Finno-Russians have protested against closing the border.

For example, Marzhan Kakimova took part in the Lappeenranta demonstration. He told Yle that he wants to meet his sister who lives in Russia. That is why he hoped that Finland would open the eastern border. Many other Finno-Russians were also upset that Finland closed the eastern border just before Christmas.

Russia disturbs Finland

Finland closed the eastern border because Russia brought a lot of asylum seekers to the border. This is how Russia wanted to disturb Finland. Russia wanted to disturb Finland because last spring Finland joined the defense alliance NATO. In Russia’s opinion, NATO is Russia’s enemy.

In Finland’s opinion, Russia’s actions threaten Finland’s security. Russia has brought asylum seekers from many different countries to the Finnish border, for example Somalia, Iraq, Yemen and India. In Finland’s opinion, Russia uses asylum seekers when it wants to cause problems for Finland. Finland wants to prevent that.

Repeat

This time the topic of the News Week has been the border between Finland and Russia. Let’s repeat the most important things.

Finland’s eastern border is closed. The government has decided that the border will remain closed for at least another month.

The closure of the eastern border hinders the lives of many Finnish-Russian families.

The border between Finland and Russia is closed because Russia has brought asylum seekers to the border. In Finland’s opinion, it threatens Finland’s security.

This was Uutisviikko in plain Finnish, see you again. Goodbye!