Russia Flooding NATO Border With Refugees May Have a Darker Purpose

Russia could be provoking Finland into tightening its borders to prevent Russian citizens from fleeing en masse to the Nordic nation in the aftermath of another possible mobilization decree, according to an expert.

Helsinki has accused Moscow, with which it shares an 830-mile border, of guiding refugees and migrants towards its territory in retaliation for its cooperation with the United States.

Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said on Wednesday that the country will close all border crossing points with Russia, except its northernmost one at Raja-Jooseppi, from midnight on Friday to curb the flow of asylum seekers. The Finnish Border Guard said that about 3,000 people have been crossing into the country per day.

Pekka Kallioniemi, a postdoctoral researcher at Tampere University in Finland, put forward the theory that Moscow could be deliberately pushing Helsinki to shut its borders to prevent Russians from fleeing should Russian President Vladimir Putin introduce a full-scale mobilization to draft more troops to fight in Ukraine.

Hundreds of thousands of men fled the country to neighboring nations after Putin announced a "partial mobilization" of the population in the fall of 2022.

"There is an interesting and feasible theory, that Russia will start partial or full mobilization after the March 2024 presidential elections, and that they actually WANT Finland to close the border so that young Russian men can't flee through Finland like they did during the first mobilization wave," Kallioniemi wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday.

"For Russia, this scenario would be extremely useful: they could blame Finland for human rights violations and for rejecting asylum seekers, they wouldn't have to close the border by themselves, and they could mobilize Russians living in Finland to protest against the government (like they already have)," he added.

Kallioniemi's comments came after Oleksii Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine's national security and defense council, suggested that Russia may announce a full mobilization after the March 2024 Russian presidential election.

"Russia has managed to adapt, and constantly injects funds into its defense sector. Russia proved to be more resilient to the West's sanctions, as expected," Danilov told the International Security Forum in Halifax, Canada, this week. "Russia is increasingly putting its economy on a war footing. Total mobilization may follow the 2024 presidential elections."

Newsweek has contacted Russia's foreign ministry for comment via email.

The Kremlin has repeatedly brushed off reports of a covert mobilization, or that a second wave of mobilization could take place. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov previously claimed a second mobilization wave in Russia would kick off in January 2023.

"There is no such need today," Putin told a group of Russian war correspondents and military bloggers during a televised meeting in June when questioned on whether he will announce another mobilization.

He said, however, that "some public figures say we need to get 1 million or 2 million," adding: "It depends on what we want."

Kallioniemi told Newsweek on Monday that Moscow was engaged in a hybrid warfare strategy in which, along with Belarus, it pushed asylum seekers towards the EU.

"The Kremlin can benefit from this operation on many levels—they can use it in their internal propaganda, but also frame Finland as a country that mistreats asylum seekers," he said.

"Now that the borders are closed, they can also claim that Finnish authorities are preventing Russians who live in Finland to visit their home country. It might also increase the popularity of pro-Kremlin, European political parties."

Do you have a tip on a world news story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about the Russia-Ukraine war? Let us know via worldnews@newsweek.com.