The border police in Finland reject reports on social media about 35 kilometer long queues at the Finnish-Russian border. The level of traffic is still below the level before the pandemic.
22 Sep 2022 12:40
Last updated just now
This article was created by Actually Verifiable. Actually Verifiable consists of reporters, researchers and fact-checkers from various media throughout Norway who work together to verify visual content and stories from the ongoing war in Ukraine.
One https://twitter.com/sotiridi/status/1572568782748680194?s=20&t=h8tGE7_1GjNrGDNQ00vahA sent out by a Greek freelance journalist has gone viral and had over 10,000 shares on Thursday.
According to the message from the Greek, the queues towards the Finnish border will now be over 35 kilometers long – and they will grow by the hour.
– This is completely untrue and fake news, says spokesman Mert Sasioglu at the headquarters of the Finnish border police Rajavartiolaitos to Faktisk Verifiserbar.
He points out that the video in question has obviously been taken out of context, because it shows a landscape with green trees and people walking rather lightly dressed around the cars.
– In any case, our assessment is that this video has not been filmed now, but must have been made at some point this summer. Right now, the deciduous trees along the entire border stretch are in red and yellow autumn colours, he says.
The Finnish border police stated on Thursday that they were not entirely sure where the video was filmed. Actually Verifiable has geolocated the location of the Vaalima border crossing.
– There are no abnormally long queues at our border stations, and traffic is far below the level before the pandemic. At times there have been queues of up to 200 metres, he adds.
According to the spokesman, 4,800 Russian citizens came to Finland on Wednesday across the thirteen border crossings towards the big neighbor to the east. All arrived in vehicles on land, as all flights between Russia and Finland have been canceled for the time being.
– By comparison, 3,100 Russian citizens crossed the border last Wednesday. That means there is some increase in the numbers, but we are not talking about any significant increase, says the spokesman.
All Russian citizens with a valid Schengen visa can still cross the border freely. But the entire EU has recently announced a much stricter practice around the issuing of new such visas.
Finland’s border with Russia is 1,340 kilometers long. In total, there are 13 stations where it is possible to cross the border with vehicles.
The police in Finnmark state that there are also not abnormally long queues at the Norwegian-Russian border at Storskog.
Read the article at Faktisk.no
