Borderlines

Closed Eastern border: broken families

(originally published: June 18, 2025)

People become family members not because of their common genetics. They build their families by doing a lot of different things: buying gifts for each other, cooking for their children, providing comfort to those who are stressed or upset, sending money to those who need them and so on. Some people may decide to stop being a family, for example because of abuse – and they stop doing such things for each other (O’Reilly, n.d.; Walls, 2007; Söderbäck, 2010).

Sometimes people may even forcibly prevent someone from making a family – think of a divorced mother who doesn’t let her son see his safe father and the son wants this himself. In courts this is often called parental alienation – meaning the situation when one parent undermines the relationship of their child with another parent. Parental alienation is a form of violence especially when it’s coercive and especially because it is harmful for the child and the separated parent (Thompson & Kaplan, 1996; Blotcky, 2022; Cantor, 2022).

State’s responsibility for breaking families

Violence isn’t only something an individual person can do. States can also force people into harmful situations where they experience pain and suffering – something that is called structural violence (Cantor, 2022).

A state can also forcibly separate families in many ways (e.g., Madziva & Zontini, 2012; Goetze, 2022; Canning & Bhatia, 2022). On 15 December 2023 the Finnish authorities decided to indefinitely close all the crossing points on the Eastern border in Finland (Finnish border guard, 2025; Helsinki Times, 2025), which prevented families from seeing each other easily (Krivonos & Diatlova, 2023; Kainulainen, 2024). This decision forcibly separated many family members from each other, preventing them from “making” their families and thus weakening or even destroying family ties. Most of such families are Russian-speaking.

Who have we have talked to?

Ekaterina is a mother of two adopted children and one biological child. All three have neuropsychological issues, and in the case of the eldest child, they are so severe that he requires constant supervision by two adults and currently lives in a special care institution, though he occasionally comes home. Her mother, who lives in Vyborg, regularly helped her with raising children. Ekaterina lives in Lappeenranta.

Elena Leontieva is a physician from Lappeenranta who has been living in Finland for more than 20 years. Her daughter Maria and her son Denis are currently living in Petrozavodsk.

Tatiana (personal details changed) moved to Finland in 2016 and lives in Pienimetsä, where she was a PhD student in engineering physics. Tatiana faced obstacles in the process of reuniting with her son due to COVID restrictions and financial requirements, and Migri did not allow her child to move to Finland. Her mother and son currently live together in Dalnegrad.

All of them highlighted that flying by plane or gathering in other countries like Turkey is too expensive for them and they cannot do that at all or can do that only very rarely.

It’s also important to notice that far not everyone from family members is actually allowed to visit their relatives because of the EU visa policies and residence permit policies in Finland.

“Only those with a residence permit or citizenship in Finland can travel from Russia to Finland through Estonia. So, my daughter wouldn’t be allowed through Estonia to visit me. If she were to travel through Turkey or Norway (which would be even longer and more expensive than the route through Estonia), my grandson wouldn’t be allowed into Finland either. Finland only permits parents, children, and spouses of residents to enter.” —Elena

“Before the border closures, my family could visit me on a visa, but now they are not allowed to enter other Schengen countries (due to sanctions from Finland). And there’s no possibility to fly via non-Schengen countries. As a result, because of the closed borders, we are seeing our family and friends much less often. They can’t visit me.” — Tatiana

Stealing time

Sociologists Monish Bhatia and Victoria Canning in their book Stealing Time: Migration, Temporalities and State Violence (2022) described how the authorities can “steal” time from people. For Russian-speaking family members this stolen time is the time that could have been spent in their families.

Ekaterina describes this as “what’s missing is the time spent together, shared joys” and feels that “That time is passing, life is going on, and something important is slipping away from us.”

The “stolen” time is something that cannot be returned, for example, because a family member may die and leave a person without any opportunity to see that family member ever again. For example, Borderlines contacted one woman who had lost her mother behind the closed border, but refused to give an interview.

“I don’t know if I’ll see my aunt alive, as she is very weak right now.” — Elena

After Borderlines came back to Elena 4 months later after the interview to show how Borderlines will use Elena’s experiences, she told us that the aunt has died and Elena didn’t manage to visit her before her death.

Elena wrote about the “stolen” experiences of witnessing the important milestones in her little grandson’s life—moments that can never be “replayed” again:

“I was fortunate to be present at my grandson’s birth. Then I saw him at six months old. But unfortunately, I’ve missed watching him grow and develop new skills. I didn’t see his first tooth, nor his first steps… “

Preventing being a mom and a granny

Motherhood consists of small actions like giving gifts to their children, playing with them, cooking for them, calming them down when they feel stressed and so on (Walls, 2007). Mothers who migrated away from their children still can keep being mothers by sending gifts, luxuries, and other goods to their children – a replacement for the lack of physical closeness from faraway. However, for Russian-speaking mothers this is not possible anymore:

  • On April 11, 2022, Finland’s national postal service, Posti, suspended all letter and parcel traffic between Finland and Russia, as well as between Finland and Belarus (Posti, 2022).
  • Moreover, on June 23, 2022, the Association of European State Postal Operators, PostEurop, suspended the membership rights of Russian Post and Belposhta (Belarus’ postal service) (Ukraine’s national post, 2022).
  • Finland stopped giving tourist visas to Russian nationals effective 30 September 2022, citing concerns over international relations and security following Russia’s military actions in Ukraine (Finland Abroad, 2022).
  • On 19 September 2022, Estonia, along with Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, banned entry for all Russian citizens with short-stay Schengen visas at their borders (Republic of Estonia. Government, 2022).
  • According to official announcements, these restrictions last as long as the governments want

When border policies prevent mothers from doing this for their children, they “break” families apart so that mothers cannot be mothers anymore or feel as if they “failed” in being mothers. The same is also true for grandmothers and grandchildren.

Elena whose daughter Maria and her grandson Denis were separated from her by the closure of the Eastern border experiences the same “failure” in being both a mother and a grandmother:

“But what kind of mental state can I have when I can’t send a little money to my family? My daughter isn’t working right now; she’s on maternity leave. As a result, she’s financially constrained. And I can’t help her financially because money transfers to Russia are banned.I can’t send them gifts for Christmas and birthdays! Because postal services to Russia are not accepted. I’m constantly plagued by a sense of guilt that I’m not giving my family what I could: emotional warmth, pleasant experiences, or material expressions of my love like gifts. During the rare meetings with my daughter, I feel she misses my attention, care, and advice.”

Tatiana, Elena, and Ekaterina mentioned that online communication doesn’t really replace real connections with their families and that this lack harms their families by forcefully weakening or even breaking them.

“I want to be able to meet friends and other relatives in Finland, so my brother can come with his family. Our children haven’t seen each other for almost 3 years and are starting to forget each other. The youngest is 5 years old, and she doesn’t even remember my brother and my cousin. We communicate through video calls, of course, but it’s just not the same. <…> They haven’t even had the chance to get to know each other. They don’t know what to talk about when we call each other. They know so little about each other.In the short conversation, where the adults also participate, they don’t manage to get to know each other. The kids can’t run around together, laugh, or play on video.” — Ekaterina

“We see each other so infrequently now. Talking via video call is not the same as being together and sitting close, hugging” — Elena

“I can’t have normal conversations with my loved ones. It’s not just about talking but also about having the possibility to hug, hold hands. Now, it feels like we are deprived of this contact…” — Tatiana

Ekaterina told how the closure of border prevented her mother from caring for her children and her, which was really needed. The lack of this made her situation with difficult children even more exhausting than before.

“My mom could come every other week. That would mean more help, I’d know I could manage for a week and then she’d be here. Now, she comes rarely, once every six months. I’m working 100% time. Besides that, I have the house, shopping, cleaning to manage. All of that is on me, as well as numerous meetings with psychologists, social workers, teachers, therapists, and doctors.When my mom comes, she naturally takes a lot on herself, like cleaning, spending time with the youngest, picking her up from daycare. She helps the middle one with her homework. And she helps me with cooking. It’s just more fun with her here—she plays with the kids, reads to them, and we even bake muffins together. Without my mom, it’s very hard.”

Harms continue

Such “theft” of time and weakening of families harm Russian-speaking families.

Elena, a physician, who feels that she cannot be fully a mother and a grandmother to her daughter and son feels “terrible about the situation” and “acute sense of loneliness”:

“I’m depressed about everything that’s happening. It’s genuine clinical depression. <…> This situation with the prolonged border closure has drained me emotionally, the feeling of lightness has disappeared, and a strong anxiety and heaviness in my heart have appeared. <…> My interest in life has significantly decreased; I’ve abandoned all my hobbies as they no longer bring me joy. I just go to work and home. I don’t go anywhere else, and I don’t want to. I feel like some sort of robot.”

Tatiana shares:

When the borders were closed, we hoped it would be temporary. I actively participated in events organized by Russian-speaking people in Finland. But then came apathy. I struggled to get out of bed, couldn’t sleep without medication. My condition worsened, and the depression score increased. It became difficult to leave the house because I had no idea if I would be able to visit my family for the holidays.”

Just like an abusive parent who doesn’t let her child see his second parent, the Finnish government also becomes violent and  forcefully keeps family members apart from each other by indefinitely shutting down the possibilities for connections.  Such families miss irreplaceable, valuable life moments and care that cannot be ever replayed again and in some way fail to keep being families, which creates pain.

Protecting Finnish democracy or undermining it?

On 15 December 2023 the Finnish authorities decided to indefinitely close all the crossing points on the Eastern border in Finland. The border is closed temporarily until further notice, which means that the government can keep it closed as long as they want. The authorities have done this due to their fear that Russia would somehow bring chaos to Finnish society by deliberately pushing humanitarian migrants into Finland.

“Russia is enabling the instrumentalisation of people … to put pressure on Finland’s national security,” Petteri Orpo, Prime Minister of Finland

“Instrumentalisation of migration is one of Russia’s means of exerting pressure and a way to affect the security and social stability of Finland and the EU,” -Mari Rantanen, Interior Minister.

Press releases also say that the closure is

“necessary and proportionate … to limit the serious consequences that it has for national security and public order”.-Press release by the Ministry of the Interior, 28 October 2023

Authorities believe that the closure stopped instrumentalised migration entirely:

“After the entry into force … instrumentalised migration across Finland’s eastern border has stopped for now”. -Ministry of the Interior, “Situation at the eastern border”

Besides closing the border, the Finnish government  passed a “pushback” law, which allows Finnish border guards to stop and turn back those people who are crossing the border.

Experts and human rights groups disagreed:

  • It breaks international law by denying people the right to seek asylum
  • It weakens democracy
  • It normalizes pushbacks, which are illegal, making exclusion and breaking the international laws seem “normal”
  • It dehumanizes migrants, calling them threats instead of people

(Aaltonen & Sajari, 2024; Könönen, 2025; UNHCR, 2024; Amnesty International, 2024)

Separation of Russian-speaking families is possibly an unintended side-effect of such border policies.

“I’m confident the decision to close the borders is political, disguised as concern for citizens. I believe the danger from migrants can be minimized in other ways.” — Ekaterina

The issue of separated Russian-speaking families has not been completely silent.

In 2023, Kimmo Kiljunen became a Foreign Affairs Committee Chair. The Foreign Affairs Committee in Finland’s Parliament looks at how the country deals with other countries, including foreign policy, international agreements, and global issues like development and peace.

In October 2024 Kiljunen met with Aleksanterinliitto, a Finnish NGO that works to support and protect the rights, freedoms, culture, and legal status of Russian-speaking Finns and related communities in Finland. On the meeting, Kiljunen called for reopening the Eastern border and accused the closure as violating human rights. He argued that the closed border violated family rights of the Russian-speaking families with family members living on both sides from the closed border. He also told that the closure of the border prevents Russian opposition from fleeing the country. He criticized Finnish tabloid media for exaggerating the threat coming from migrants crossing the eastern border. The video from this meeting got into and spread in the social media, reaching the authorities and journalists. In November 2024, the Prime Minister Petteri Orpo called Kiljunen’s statements “a big problem”, while President Alexander Stubb said those in foreign policy roles must speak with “one voice”.  Even though Kiljunen has never had any pro-Kremlin positions and supported imprisoned Russian opposition activists, leaders of Kiljunen’s own party (SDP) distanced themselves from him saying that he was speaking only for himself. Such pressure led Kiljunen to make a public apology and resign from his duties as Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee in late 2024 (Bjurström & Orjala, 2024; Joukanen et al., 2024; Novaya Gazeta Europe, 2024; YLE News, 2024).

Ivan Deviatkin is a Russian-speaking politician and a city council in Lappeenranta who has been criticizing the closure of the Eastern border. Ivan experienced an attack on his personality from newspapers labeling him “pro-Putin”:

Etelä-Saimaa (16.5.2025): “News Analysis: A dramatic email and a landslide of votes in the double elections – Who are Ivan Deviatkin and Katja Marova?”; Etelä-Saimaa (17.5.2025): “From the Editor-in-Chief: Pro-Russian council members stir confusion in Lappeenranta – Finland has freedom of speech, which was redeemed in the last wars”; Ilta-Sanomat (8.6.2025): “Into the council with a pro-Russian agenda”; Yle (9.6.2025): “Ilta-Sanomat: Two left-wing politicians organized closed pro-Russian election events in South Karelia before the elections.”

On 29 May 2025, the Lappeenranta Left Alliance council group dismissed Deviatkin from the Left Alliance council group, making him an unaffiliated member, but refused to explain the reasons clearly.

“The grounds for dismissal are Ivan Deviatkin’s inappropriate behavior at a council group meeting and repeated actions that are contrary to the party’s values. We will not comment further on the matter.” -Sara Backman, Chairman of the Lappeenranta Left Alliance council group, 30 May 2025

Confused with both the Left Alliance’s decision and the attack by Finnish media, Deviatkin wrote a short essay on his Facebook account. In it, he told how such aggressive campaigns can create a suspicious and frightening image of politicians. This makes people distrust and afraid of what such politicians say.

Author’s addition: after the text had been written, one more article was published that brought new details about how some Left Alliance reacted to Deviatkin’s case.

“What is the goal of such campaigns?

First — psychological and moral pressure. Sometimes this is stated openly in articles. For example: “I don’t want to speculate, but under pressure, Deviatkin’s first decision as a city council member might be to resign from his post.” (Etelä-Saimaa, 2.6.2025). In other words, the aim is to directly pressure someone into giving up a legally obtained mandate.

Second — marginalisation. Creating an image of “toxic” individuals whom no one would want to work with. “Collaboration with other parties stalled because of Deviatkin, even though his party was one of the winners of the election.” (Etelä-Saimaa, 4.6.2025).

Third — attacking one’s reputation. What do colleagues and potential employers see when they Google our names? “Pro-Russian councillors stir confusion in Lappeenranta” (Etelä-Saimaa, 17.5.2025), “On a pro-Russian agenda to the council” (Ilta-Sanomat, 8.6.2025).

<…>

Fifth — to “warn others”. To intimidate those who, in the future, might dare to voice unpopular opinions or defend minority rights. The message is clear: “See what will happen to you — better stay silent.”

How the media and politicians make the ideas of opposing the closure of the Eastern border seem frightening and suspicious – together with people who bring them – is an example of securitization.

Securitization is talking about something like it’s a big threat – so dangerous that it needs urgent, special actions, even if those break normal rules in society (Eroukhmanoff, 2018).

Features of securitization:

  • Someone with power in society (a government, a politician, or media outlet says “this is a threat” about some issue (immigration, disease, protests) and that it is dangerous to the country, its people, or its values.
  • They say that someone or something needs protection (nation, society, borders, or values). They say “We must protect ourselves from this!”
  • The public agrees. If enough people believe that his threat is real, they will let the government take extreme steps (closing borders, banning visas, lock people at homes)
  • When the public agrees, the government may skip discussing some “emergent” laws with its society. Such laws may ignore human rights or even do things that are normally illegal (like restricting freedom of movement of citizens or surveilling people)
  • It may be about one group of people in the beginning- but it may creep into people with time

Securitization theory explains that things that are seen as a “threat” may not be so much “dangerous” in reality. Instead, people with power make certain people look like big, unusual “threats” in the ways they talk about them. It’s especially visible when we compare one “threatening” event with something similar or even bigger to which there was no such reaction from powerful people (Könönen, 2025; Aleksanterinliitto, 2025).

At the same time, securitization of humanitarian migrants isn’t something new. Governments in other European countries already talked like the Finnish government but much earlier, before the Russian military invasion in Ukraine.

In 2015, Spain made a law that let border guards quickly send people back if they tried to cross into the country at its North African borders near Ceuta and Melilla (Andersson, 2015; Ciemecka & Laine, 2026; Amnesty International, 2022). The government said the law was needed to stop Morocco from letting people through its territory into Spain. This made legal a practice that was already happening and had been in the news in 2005 when some people were killed at the border fence.

During the media’s attack on Deviatkin, Anastasiia Diudina, an anti-war activist in Finland, also wrote several essays on Facebook where she blamed Deviatkin and similar politicians for being “pro-Putin” because of their call to open the border. Her statements do not have a scientific basis and are ideological instead.

Diudina writes that “many Russians feel they have an almost innate right to reside in Finland.” But research by border studies professor Olga Davydova-Minguet and social science researcher Pirjo Pöllänen (2021) shows the opposite. Many Russian-speaking people in Finland actually face stress, fear, and uncertainty — especially when they try to visit or help family members across the border. These cross-border ties are about everyday life, not politics or threats. This is something that Borderlines also showed in our previous post.

Diudina also writes that even anti-war Russians can be “tools for FSB influence.” The Russian FSB is the country’s main security service that watches for threats inside Russia, like spying or terrorism, and took over from the old Soviet KGB. But a study by Tatiana Oivo and Davydova-Minguet (2021) shows that these kinds of broad suspicions are not backed by real evidence. Instead, people with Russian roots — especially those with dual citizenship — are often treated as a risk just because of who they are, not because they’ve done anything wrong. This kind of thinking has been used to block people from public jobs unfairly.

Just because someone opposes keeping the border with Russia permanently closed doesn’t mean they support the Russian government. They might actually be worried about how Finland itself is changing — for example, becoming less open to democratic debate.

When political discussions are always treated as security threats, it becomes harder to speak up without being labeled suspicious. This is what professor of international relations Didier Bigo (2002) and professor of international politics Jef Huysmans (2006; 2011) describe in their studies.

Securitization makes public debate look dangerous. It turns people who call for dialogue into suspected traitors. That’s why, as Bigo explains, this kind of thinking creates a “culture of unease,” where governments and officials use fear to justify silencing others. Huysmans shows how this leads to long-term harm: public institutions start seeing all migration — or any connection to “outsiders” — as a threat, even in democracies.

When Finnish politicians are called “Russia-friendly” just for saying the border should reopen, or for wanting to keep dialogue possible — we need to ask: is this really about security, or is it about shutting down political debate?

If we’re not careful, Finland could start copying the same tactics that made Russia an authoritarian state — where fear is used to silence opposition.

More details about this:

Finnish Constitution, Ministry of Justice https://finlex.fi/en/laki/kaannokset/1999/en19990731.pdf

Human Rights Watch report on Russia https://www.hrw.org/europe/central-asia/russia

OSCE Election Observation Reports on Finland https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/finland

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) election reports on Russia https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/russian-federation

Council of Europe on Separation of Powers https://www.coe.int/en/web/portal/separation-of-powers

Freedom House: Russia’s Political Rights https://freedomhouse.org/country/russia/freedom-world/2023

Reporters Without Borders: Finland Press Freedom Index https://rsf.org/en/finland

Committee to Protect Journalists: https://cpj.org/europe/russia/

Treating issues like opposing the shut down of the Easter border as a security threat can actually harm democracy instead of protecting it.

Political science professor Nancy Bermeo (2016) in her research explained that democracies can weaken over time when laws that are meant to protect are used to limit freedom. These could be emergency powers, giving more control to the government, or silencing critics. This gradual loss of freedoms is known as executive aggrandizement (where leaders gain more power (Laebens, 2023)).

According to the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute, led by Professor M. Laebens (2023), global data shows that democratic standards have been getting worse since 2006. Security arguments have been used to justify cutting back people’s rights, controlling the media, and weakening the courts. The Marshall Center (Gashaj et al., 2023) adds that security organizations are often used to push loyalty to the government, which can move a democracy closer to becoming an authoritarian state (where one person or group has too much power).

The Carnegie Endowment (Farinha & Youngs, 2024) also warns that European policies focusing too much on security in areas like migration and Russia may unintentionally harm democracy by ignoring other important values.

This isn’t just a suggestion. The Democratic Erosion project, which includes researchers from Harvard and other universities, has already pointed out that debates about migration and security in Finland could threaten the country’s democracy — especially when those who disagree are labeled as “disloyal.” (Koc University, 2020; 2022)

(see the references below in the section “Securitization in Russia” and “Securitization in Finland”)

“I grew up hearing from the government that all of this was for “our own safety.” In the end, it led to Russians not even having the right to express their opinions freely. I worry a lot that Finland could change—from a free country into something with fewer human rights, with more restrictions. And it could happen so gradually that no one even notices. Like they say, if you want to boil a frog, you have to do it slowly. It won’t even realize it’s being cooked. Politics works the same way. A little here, a little there. And then suddenly, there’s no way out…” Tatiana

Excluding one group conveys the meaning that excluding a group is possible in principle—and history shows it rarely stops with only one group. This “slippery slope” is well-documented: treating migration and people living on the border as a security threat often leads to a broader democratic decline. Exclusion becomes normalized first at the “border,” then creeps inward to welfare, speech, and participation. Recognizing early warning signs—like Finland’s current securitized asylum and border policies—can help prevent weakening democracy in Finland.

From 1949 to 1989, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) was a democratic state bordering the German Democratic Republic (East Germany)—an authoritarian regime aligned with the USSR. By 1961, around 3.45 million East Germans crossed into West Germany, usually legally or semi-legally, without being framed as “security threats.” Many migrated for economical and political reasons. Even after building the Berlin Wall in 1961, West German policy remained laws-based and rights-oriented, not emergency-driven. Border crossings were family visits or business, managed under regulatory frameworks rather than security emergencies (Becker et al., 2020; Fröhlich, 2023; Gehrig, 2023; Jarausch, 1994).

 How West Germany avoided securitization:

  1. No framing migrants from East Germany as existential threats to West Germany: political leaders in West Germany portrayed migration as a liberating movement—not a threat.
  2. Legal protections remained intact: East Germans crossing borders received social and legal support, not suspicion or exclusion.
  3. People emphasized humanitarian, familial, and political reasons of why people migrate from East Germany—not the threats to “capitalist values”, society or security.

Democracy and security can coexist without securitization. Even amid ideological rivalry and military tension, West Germany upheld legal and humanitarian approaches. West Germany emphasized rights, not fear. Border communities were treated with human dignity, not suspicion, even near the “Iron Curtain.” The Eastern border today could look like this—balancing vigilance with law, inclusivity, and procedural fairness, even in challenging contexts.

How to cite this article (APA style):

Borderlines. (2026, May 27). Closed Esatern border: broken families. Available at: https://borderlinesfi.blog/en/2026/05/27/closed-eastern-border-broken-families/ (Accessed: your date)

References

Securitization in Finland:

Securitization in Russia:

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