"Our main task is to prevent people from fleeing Russia," a retired Russian border guard told Helsingin Sanomat when describing his job. One of the paper’s most-read articles on Thursday features an interview with the former officer, identified as "Stanislav."
At the end of 2023, when Moscow orchestrated a flow of migrants across the border, Stanislav faced a serious challenge as large numbers of undocumented migrants were moving through the forests of Karelia.
"We had to chase them down like before, even though it was clear they weren't arriving here by accident, but aided by some high-ranking Russian official," he explained.
Stanislav told HS that his border guard station received no orders to change operational procedures.
He told HS he believes that the order to allow illegal migrants to reach the Finnish border was issued only to official crossing points, none of which were located in the area under his control.
This assumption is indirectly supported by the fact that nearly all of the approximately 1,300 migrants who entered Finland in the autumn of 2023 did so via official checkpoints.
Under pressure
The financial squeeze on Finnish households is now being seen in forced property sales via debt collection. The number of asset sales carried out through debt enforcement has increased by 15 percent compared to last year.
Asset sales are a last resort when a debtor's income is insufficient.
While the total number of enforcement cases hasn't increased significantly, the nature of debt collection is changing, according to business daily Kauppalehti.
The most commonly sold assets are housing shares and real estate, though in principle, anything with monetary value can be subject to sale.
Last year, just over 37,000 properties were subject to enforcement, up from 29,500 in 2023.
Heat returns
There's good news in Thursday's papers for fans of warm weather: summer-like temperatures are expected to make a comeback in the second half of next week.
Hot weather is set to return to southern and central parts of Finland next week. This fall is also expected to be warmer than usual, reports Iltalehti.
The tabloid cites the latest long-range forecast from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), which is expecting temperatures in Finland between September and November to be 1–2 degrees Celsius above average.
