ReportWorried about the tensions with their neighbour, a majority of the inhabitants of the border area support Helsinki’s membership of the Atlantic Alliance.
At the Imatra border post, 270 km from Helsinki to the west and 200 km from Saint Petersburg to the east, time seems to stand still. The few motorists who present themselves there are redirected to Lappeenranta, the only crossing point in the region still open, located about thirty kilometers to the south. Only trucks that are not registered in Russia or Belarus are allowed to enter Finland. As for rail transport, it is at a standstill: on the rails, near the road, hundreds of wood transport wagons form a long motionless serpent for several kilometres, a consequence of the embargo on Russian wood, imposed by the European Union, since April 8.
Of a usually jovial nature, Anna Helminen, the president of the municipal council of Imatra, a small town of 26,000 inhabitants, located three kilometers from the border post, does not hide her pessimism in the face of the iron curtain which fell between the two countries, on February 24: “I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel,” she says. In this context, the elected member of the National Coalition Party (conservative), aged 46, long undecided on the question of Finland joining NATO, has joined the camp of supporters. “I think it’s a good solution to ensure security in the region and reassure investors that our neighborhood with Russia could worry. »
Anna Helminen is not the only one to have changed her opinion: according to a poll published on 9th May, 76% of Finns are now in favor of membership, against less than 30% before the war in Ukraine. A shift in public opinion, unthinkable a few months ago, which should lead the country of 5.5 million inhabitants to announce its candidacy for NATO membership by the end of the week.
Incursion from a helicopter
Moscow has already made it known that the integration of Finland – which would double the length of the borders between Russia and the transatlantic alliance, increasing it from 1,215 to 2,555 km – will not go unanswered. On May 4, while British Defense Minister Ben Wallace was attending the “Arrow” military exercise in southwestern Finland, a Russian military helicopter made a 4.5 km incursion into the Finnish airspace, north of Imatra. The next day, Russian media published photos of tanks taken during the exercise, claiming that Finland was mobilizing troops on the border with Russia.
If these attempts at destabilization are followed closely by the authorities in Helsinki, Emil Stigman, head of security at Imatra, assures that there is no reason to worry. According to this 32-year-old former border guard, “The events do not affect the daily life of the inhabitants”. A bit resigned, Jarmo Ikävalko, a soon-to-be 70-year-old resident, confirms: “Anyway, it doesn’t matter what happens. We live on the border and we have nowhere to go. »
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