Passengers on a train in Oulu saw armed Border Guard officers wearing bulletproof vests on the station platform and aboard the train on Saturday evening.
One of the passengers, Markku Sorjonen, boarded the train at the Oulu station.
"They were wearing heavy equipment, bulletproof vests and firearms on their belts," he explained.
However, the officers were only carrying out routine surveillance duties, according to the Deputy Commander of the West Finland Coast Guard District, Tuomas Luukkonen.
"We've been carrying out surveillance and patrols in the area, but they were not related to a specific task. There was nothing special about it," Luukkonen said.
The deputy commander explained that the surveillance was carried out to maintain border security, and that the officers were not searching for any particular individual.
"Apart from during the inspections themselves, we do not typically inform the public about the reasons [for patrols]," Luukkonen explained, adding that the weekend surveillance task was carried out in cooperation with members of the national rail firm VR.
Passenger Sorjonen said he did not think the situation posed some kind of danger.
"At least I didn't see anything like that. People acted as if it was nothing," he said on Saturday evening.
According to Sorjonen, the train in question was night train 266 from Rovaniemi to Helsinki. It departed Rovaniemi at 5:52pm but arrived in Oulu late, later catching up with the timetable.
According to VR's app, which also tracks trains in real time, train 266 arrived in Oulu 20 minutes late and departed when it was still a few minutes behind schedule.
