Russia to expand security zone on border with Finland up to 25 kilometres
|
|
|
Russia plans to significantly widen its zone of restricted access on its with Finland. According to Moscow newspapers, the zone will be 25 kilometres wide in the Murmansk sector on the country’s borders with Finland and Norway.
The financial newspaper Komersant observes that in the Karelian isthmus, the border zone has already been expanded by about ten kilometres.
The expansion of the border zone is part of an extensive reform of Russian border monitoring activities.
In 2003 Russia’s Border Guard Service was put back under the authority of the country’s security police, the FSB. In the following year Russia’s lower house of parliament, the Duma, passed the law placing border security matters under the authority of the FSB. At the same time, a paragraph was removed from the law, which had set the maximum width of Russia’s border zone to five kilometres.
The security police initiated practical measures to expand the border zone only in the past few months. The head of the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, has signed four sets of orders in recent months, in which the width of the zone is set in different regions.
The part concerning Finland was signed in May. In the same package, Patrushev set the border zones for the regions of the Republic of Karelia, Murmansk, Pihkova, Leningrad, Archangel, and the autonomous area of Nenetsia.
"This matter is so new to us that we have not yet marked the limits of Russia’s new border zone onto the map", notes Brigadier-General Mikko Kirjavainen of the general staff of the Finnish Border Guard.
He says that the Border Guard is currently collecting information from different sources on the changes. "The Russian Border Guard Service has not given any official information about it."
As Kirjavainen sees it, there seems to be a clear trend in Russia to go back to the idea of having a wide border zone. However, the new rules are still a far cry from the Soviet times, when the restricted area along the border was about 100 kilometres wide.
"Although Russian legislation set the width of the border zone at five kilometres at most, in practice they have followed the old Soviet practice into the 21st century. Therefore, the border zone has been wider than five kilometres in many places", Kirjavainen points out.
He says that Russian border security officials have been pushing for a wider zone for years.
Kirjavainen does not believe that the expansion of the security zone on the Russian side will make it any more difficult for Finnish tourists to move around in the border area. It appears that large communities near the Finnish border will not be included within the zone.
"The new border zone would seem to bypass Vyborg and residential areas near it."
Russia has not officially informed Finnish officials on the practical implications of its planned move.
The restricted area on the Russian side of the border is to be significantly wider than on the Finnish side.
Under Finnish legislation, the border zone is a maximum of three kilometres wide. Kirjavainen says that the only places where the zone is that wide is the north of Finland, where the state owns extensive areas of forest.
A process is currently underway in Finland, where the border zone on the Finnish side is being narrowed, according to the wishes of local residents.
Helsingin Sanomat
|
| 4.8.2006 - TODAY |
 Russia to expand security zone on border with Finland up to 25 kilometres
|
|
