Is the Iron Curtain returning to Europe? News. Last Minute Berlin, Russia news headlines and events

Exactly 33 years ago, in November 1989, the whole world watched the fall of the Berlin Wall, the erection of walls between Eastern and Western Europe; 33 years later, Europe is again divided by iron and concrete walls. European countries are again erecting barricades with Russia and Belarus after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Finland, which applied for full NATO membership against the Russian threat, was not satisfied with this, and this weekend – 1300 km. 3 meters high, 260 km to the border with Russia. He told the details of the barrier construction project along

Fearing that Moscow would use immigrants to exert political pressure, Finland changed its border protection law in July to make it easier to build stronger barriers.

Finland’s borders are currently surrounded mostly by light wooden barriers designed to “impede the movement of animals”. However, the government did not use the existing wooden barriers, which complained that they were too permeable; He pressed a button to replace it with tough iron bars with better tracks. The construction of the border wall will cost the Finnish government 380 million euros.

This new wall will be built between 2023 and 2026 to protect the country from an increasingly threatening Kremlin. The wall will also be equipped with night vision cameras and speakers.

In other border countries, one after another, plans are announced to create barbed wire, iron and concrete walls, which are planned to be pulled up to the border of Belarus and Russia.

Ukraine built a wall

Before Finland, Ukraine announced on November 11 that a wall was being built on the border with neighboring Belarus to support Russia.

In the Volyn region in northern Ukraine, construction began on a wall of concrete and barbed wire. The construction of a concrete wall surrounded by barbed wire, surrounded by a trench and a patrol has already reached 3 km. After the completion of the construction phase, the border will be monitored around the clock by technical means, primarily cameras and detectors.

Iron wire from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania

The barriers erected on the border between East and West do not only refer to recent months. Fearing the Russian threat, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania also announced that they would build walls. As of 2017, he has installed an iron wire fence along the border with Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave. Estonia has started building fences along part of its 110 km eastern border. Latvia, on the other hand, began a project to completely close its 300-kilometer border with Russia in 2019.

However, this trend is gaining momentum again with the prolongation of the Ukrainian-Russian war. Earlier in November, Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said a fence was being built along the border with the Russian enclave in Kaliningrad to prevent Russian-organized border crossings by illegal immigrants. The decision was made after the start of flights connecting the Middle East and North Africa with the Russian territory of Kaliningrad, stuck on the Polish border.

Poland has just completed construction of the much-discussed wall with Belarus, 5.5 meters high, 186 kilometers long and costing 350 million euros. Following Poland, Lithuania also erected barriers to prevent illegal immigrants from Belarus from crossing the border. This barrier has also been completed. The cost of this barrier for Lithuania is 152 million euros. More than 500 km of the 679 km of the border between Lithuania and Belarus are currently covered with barbed wire and a four-meter fence. The rest of the border is a zone of more easily controlled rivers and lakes.

“Ghosts of the Cold War”

Building walls over security and immigration also increases the risk of setting Europe back more than 30 years, planting the seeds of a new iron curtain between East and West. In particular, if the war in Ukraine ends with a “Korean-style” ceasefire, there are fears that the “ghosts of the Cold War” will again walk in Europe, unless Putin’s Russia withdraws from the war, but does not surrender, and also does not sign a formal treaty about peace and non-aggression. The sight of these barbed-wire borders from Western Europe evokes memories of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall, and the Iron Curtain between the Soviet and Western blocs.

Speaking to Le Parisien newspaper, Cold War historian Galia Akerman, referring to the example of Iraqi immigrants who arrived in Poland via Belarus, explained the increase in wall construction in border countries: “In the event of a massive and armed ground attack, or in the case of immigrants, upper flights and border guards Modern tools like this are not enough,” he explains.

Ackerman points out that Russia has stepped up border security in Crimea and Donbas to ensure the safety of Crimeans. “The goal here is not to lose Crimea. If Putin loses Crimea, he will lose power,” says Ackerman.

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