• Bleeping Lobster@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Russia just cannot be trusted. Over and over and over again, they show this to the world.

    Countries need to stop giving Russia ‘one more chance’. Treat the Russian government like the fraudulent, evil pariahs that they reveal themselves to be.

    • fosforus@sopuli.xyz
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      2 years ago

      Yeah, I cannot even understand what the future should look like with Russia. What can they do to gain any trust, or will we just keep going in a world where the West just doesn’t have any relations with Russia? I guess it worked in the 1900s in some way.

    • Sanyanov@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      This isn’t just a matter of trust in Russian government.

      Many Russians and Finns are connected one way or the other - quite some Finns have relatives in Russia (especially Karelia and Saint Petersburg), and quite some Russians have relatives and close ones in Finland. This kind of shitshow breaks down families and leads to immense levels of suffering, and that’s not “all Putin’s fault” (even though he did a lot of shit to get us where we are)

      Russia has shown interest in solving the issue together, and Finland works on legislation to stop asylum seekers without closing the border.

      But the idiocy of what happened yesterday is hard to describe. “We will keep borders open unless they are gonna come again”. OF COURSE THEY WILL, THEY WAITED ON THAT BORDER FFS. At that point, Russian government can do very little to stop these particular people from going there.

      Not to mention this is extremely inhumane on the side of Finnish government and only comes as a result of immigration crisis caused by uneven distribution on asylum seekers inside the EU - but as sealing borders with EU, from which majority of them come, is super impractical and politically consequential, they are gonna focus on just a few, the minority, coming through Russia. It is reactionary measure against a long overlooked issue.

  • Everythingispenguins@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Where are the migrants from? I assume they aren’t Russian nationals. It seems odd that Russia is trying to use them to bolster their own population. I get that this is probably an attempt to destabilize a Western country, but still Russia could use the people.

    • Kallioapina@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      In local news our national broadcaster and right wing rags have reported that most of these newcomers are from Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia.

      Source: I’m a finn myself.

      Here’s also a link to a relevant news story from our national broadcaster YLE’s english version, if you’re interested to read more: https://yle.fi/a/74-20062259

      • Everythingispenguins@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Hmm interesting, thank you for the article. I wonder if this is more of a Russian trying to get rid of migrants of a mistrusted group and have a convention enemy to push them on to or a planned operation to draw them to Russia to use them as international political fodder.

        • Kallioapina@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          Perhaps both. There are also news reports that some of these migrants now stuck in Russia are being pressured by russian military authorities to sign contracts to go fight in Ukraine, in exchange getting Russian citizenship later. More cannon fodder to the grinder…

        • Sanyanov@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          Migrants have always been a big part of Russia’s workforce, and while the population’s opinion on them varies (as it does everywhere), Russian government didn’t show much hostility to migrants, and they are vital for Russian economy.

          Getting rid of migrants is undermining Russia.

    • PugJesus@kbin.social
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      2 years ago

      It’s just an attempt to sow discord in Finland. Nothing more.

      Russia isn’t using them because Russia’s calcified bureaucracy is very procedure-oriented, even if not very law-oriented, and the procedures for conscripting non-citizens are non-existent.

    • Sanyanov@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      I feel it’s a huge overstatement and reactionary policy.

      A dozen or two of migrants a day will not kill Finland in any way. Way, WAY more of them came through other EU countries, yet they’re obvioisly not gonna shut EU borders.

      This is very political.

        • Sanyanov@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          Because they are already there and don’t break any laws. It’s not illegal to be in Russia, including near the border (although it does and always did enforce additional control in regions next to borders)

          Russia can restrict new people coming into the country (a measure that will be very bad for Russia itself), but it can’t just remove the people that are already legally in.

            • Sanyanov@lemmy.world
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              2 years ago

              Not that it’s a Russian State Bus.

              Those are commercial, and legally grey, not black.

              And you can’t stop all buses - absolute majority of them drive legitimate Finnish residents, and asylum seekers will just switch to cars.

    • RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Immigrants aren’t always a bad thing, but sometimes immigrants fail or outright refuse to integrate into their new home and instead try to change their new home to be similar to the place they left behind. Which is kind of ironic because the reason they left was because they didn’t like it there, but then they eventually end up creating the same situation that made them leave.

      Additionally, immigrants can have negative economic impacts like if they undercut other workers. If they take jobs at lower pay than usual, then the original population workers who are already working are fired and replaced with the cheaper labor, causing unemployment in the original population. Different cultures have different common crimes which are usually carried over with immigrants that refuse to integrate into their new home. Differences between the immigrants and original population lead to new emergent crimes as well.

      Its not that immigrants or immigration is bad. This certainly doesn’t apply to every immigrant, or even every immigrant from a specific culture. The problem is when immigrants do not integrate, whether they were not educated enough or whether they intentionally refuse to. It can wreak all sorts of havoc on a nations stability, economy, etc., depending on how much of an influx of migration occurs.

      • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        This is a super racist take on immigration. People want to feel like their culture they came from isn’t gone. And that’s very understandable, and not a problem even. Just wanted to let you know, you probably don’t think you’re racist, because nobody wants to think of themselves as racist. But you’ve got some implicit biases you might want to turn inward and look at very seriously. Or you can just ignore me, what the hell do I care, I’m just a random stranger on the internet.

        • RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          This isn’t racist, but that has become a pretty popular term to call people lately.

          Different cultures are not bad. I even say they’re good. For example, people who complain about stuff like “cultural appropriation” make me laugh. They want to hoard their culture to themselves, rather than celebrate that more people are taking an interest in their culture.

          The problem, as I said, is migrants that do not integrate. Which is not all migrants. Cultures can be integrated and blended together, you see it all over the USA. But there are some migrants that hold onto their culture like a dragon hoarding gold, and you can practically see it like a wall in a city. They refuse to integrate and instead maintain a hard line between them and the original population. It’s like pockets of different countries within a culturally mixed country, rather than people of different cultures living together.

          • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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            2 years ago

            I think it’s reasonable to complain about cultural appropriation when someone is taking something from another culture with no appreciation or understanding for the meaning of that thing in the context of that culture.

            For example, if I was to go around wearing a purple heart despite the fact that I haven’t served in the military nor have I been wounded in action, many people would be rightfully offended. Many people don’t want to actually learn about other cultures, they just want to wear them as a costume or fashion statement which is what gets them into trouble.

        • anewbeginning@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          Integration should be expected. It’s not in any way racist to expect it. Do you even know what racism is?

      • chitak166@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Yeah, those damn libs bringing their woke ideas to red states.

        They should just stay where they are or learn to integrate!

    • Pyr@lemmy.ca
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      2 years ago

      Depends on the country that they are emigrating too. Where I am from we are short on housing and have a stressed healthcare system. Immigrants likely would put stress on both of those systems, despite benefits to other areas of the country. But the other areas they would benefit probably wouldn’t outweigh the stress on housing and healthcare.

    • bratosch@lemm.ee
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      2 years ago

      Because providing housing and jobs to hundreds of people per day from a country with a language barrier that probably (most definitely) is scheming to invade in the near future is a good thing?

      • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Do you think the entire Russian population is scheming against Finland? Because they’re not. The shitty ass government and the Russian people are not synonymous with one another.

        • GenEcon@lemm.ee
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          2 years ago

          Over 80 % of Russians support the war in Ukraine. This whole ‘Putin isnt the Russian population’ is just an excuse to not look like a country of fachists. Germany after WW2 did the same.

        • Alto@kbin.social
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          2 years ago

          Obviously it’s not the people’s fault that their government keeps using them as an excuse to invade their neighbors. That doesn’t mean their neighbors need to be fucking idiots and load a gun, point it at their own head, and say pweetty pwease don’t pull it.

        • bratosch@lemm.ee
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          2 years ago

          Of course not. I also didn’t think every single person I ran into had Covid. That didn’t mean I would shake hands with anyone offering.

          But either way, it still doesn’t change the problem with housing and work.

        • bratosch@lemm.ee
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          2 years ago

          Oh right, forgive me. For a second there I thought Russia was acting irrational, silly me

        • fosforus@sopuli.xyz
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          2 years ago

          Technically speaking Grand Duchy of Finland (1809-1917), which was a state inside the Russian Empire, existed for longer than independent Finland has so far. That will change in 2025, if we get that far.

          I believe Russian Imperialists are looking at this area because of that history. Dunno how seriously, but NATO and the DCA should put a cork in that.

    • fosforus@sopuli.xyz
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      2 years ago

      Why do people always thing immigrants are a bad thing?

      Mostly because they are a burden for the social system (which is already highly strained in Finland), and because of the criminal element they bring in. Then again, perhaps more immigrants will eventually convince the people to stop supporting those social systems, which would ultimately be a good thing for everybody.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    2 years ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Finland’s government has decided to seal again, effective Friday, the Nordic country’s entire eastern frontier due to a continuing influx of migrants at the two crossing points on the border with Russia that were reopened on a temporary basis early Thursday.

    The Finnish Border Guard reported that dozens of migrants without proper documentation or visas had arrived at the two checkpoints by late Thursday.

    The number of migrants was predicted to increase rapidly at Vaalimaa and Niirala checkpoints, prompting the Finnish government’s to react quickly and close them as of 8 p.m. Friday until January 14, Rantanen said.

    At the end of November, Orpo’s government opted to close the entire 1,340-kilometer border for at least two weeks over concerns that Moscow was using migrants to destabilize Finland in an alleged act of “hybrid warfare.”

    Earlier December, Finnish authorities said the vast majority of the migrants who arrived in November hailed from three countries: Syria, Somalia and Yemen.

    Finland, a nation of 5.6 million people, makes up a significant part of NATO’s northeastern flank and acts as the European Union’s external border in the north.


    The original article contains 393 words, the summary contains 184 words. Saved 53%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • tsonfeir@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    They could build a wall of metal bands that would stretch the length of the country