Russia State news agency TASS reported on June 30 that the Russian government decreed to close several railway border crossings on the state border with Latvia, Finland and Estonia.
“The movement of people, vehicles, goods and cargoes” via the border crossings designated by the government is suspended, wrote TASS. The Russian Foreign Ministry was instructed to notify Riga, Tallinn and Helsinki about the decision made by Moscow and effective from July 1. The move is deemed temporary.
The closed border crossings include St. Petersburg-Finlyandsky, Vyborg, Vyartsilya, Ljuttja and Svetogorsk (all of them for Finland), Pechory-Pskovskiye on the border with Estonia, and Pytalovo bordering on Latvia.
The closures cut one of the few remaining direct land transport links between Russia and its EU neighbors.
According to Ukraine’s newspaper Kyiv Post, Russia’s northwestern borders with Finland and the Baltic States have reportedly seen mounting tensions since Finland and Sweden joined NATO in 2023 and 2024, respectively. All three countries are observing enhanced Russian military activity in border areas as well as drones’ crossing and hybrid threats. They all have reinforced borders’ security.
