More Russians travelled to Finland during weekend, Resistance to the draft grows

HELSINKI, Sept 26 (Reuters) – Almost 17,000 Russians crossed the border into Finland during the weekend, an 80% rise from a week earlier, Finnish authorities said on Monday, as the influx of people continued in the wake of Russia’s announcement of military mobilisation.

The border traffic had somewhat calmed early on Monday but remained busier than in the previous weeks, Captain Taneli Repo at Finland’s southeastern border authority told Reuters.

“The queues continue to be a bit longer than they’ve usually been since the pandemic,” he said.

Wednesday’s announcement of Russia’s first public mobilisation since World War Two, to shore up its faltering Ukraine war, has triggered a rush for the border, the arrest of protesters and unease in the wider population.

Young Russian men who spoke to Reuters after crossing into Finland via the Vaalimaa border station last week, some three hours by car from Russia’s second-largest city St Petersburg, said they left out of fear of being drafted for the war.

Russia calls its actions in Ukraine “a special military operation”.

The Finnish government, wary of becoming a major transit nation, on Friday said it will stop all Russians from entering on tourist visas within the coming days, although exceptions may still apply on humanitarian grounds.

Resistance to the draft – which has been called a “partial mobilisation” – also appears to be growing.

For the last five days, protests have been taking place across the vast expanse of this country.

Although they are small, it’s significant they are happening at all in Putin’s Russia, where dissent is not tolerated.

There are also signs of more serious disobedience and political action.

At least 20 recruitment offices have been torched, and an enlistment officer was shot at point-blank range at a conscription centre in the Siberian region of Irkutsk. There is not a big anti-draft movement yet, but the longer all this goes on, the greater the possibility of it happening.