Russia has announced its withdrawal of consent to Finland's operation of a consulate general in St Petersburg. The Russian foreign ministry also announced on Thursday that nine Finnish diplomats will be expelled from the country.
Finland’s general consulate will cease its activities in Russia’s second largest city from October 1, according to a statement.
Finnish ambassador to Russia Antti Helantera was summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Moscow and informed of the decisions, taken in response to “confrontational actions” by Helsinki, the statement read.
In June, Finland expelled nine diplomats from the Russian embassy in Helsinki, accusing them of performing intelligence missions “contrary to the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations.”
The Finnish ambassador was also told that the Nordic country’s entry into NATO in April was “a threat to Russia’s security.” Helsinki claimed that it abandoned its long-standing policy of non-alignment and applied to join the US-led military bloc due to concerns over the Russian military operation in Ukraine, launched in February 2022.
“Encouraging the Kiev regime to go to war [with Russia] and pumping it with Western weapons” were “clearly hostile actions” by Helsinki that couldn’t be left unanswered, the statement added.
Finland, which shares a 1,300-kilometer border with Russia, has recently been disrupting economic ties and human contact between the two countries, discriminating against Russians when issuing entry visas and creating obstacles for the regular activities of Russian diplomats, Moscow claimed.
The course pursued by Helsinki is aimed at “breaking down the mutually beneficial Russian-Finnish relations that have been formed over decades,” it pointed out.
Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said on social media that Moscow’s measures were a “harsh and asymmetric” reaction to Finland’s expulsion of diplomats. Helsinki is preparing a “similar measure” in response, he said, suggesting that the Consulate General of Russia in Turku could be shut.