seen in the video also differs from the autumn colors currently on display near the Vaalimaa checkpoint, visible in the AFP footage below.Border crossings into Finland from Russia increased slightly after Putin's announcement compared to past weeks, said Kimmo Ahvonen of the Finnish Border Guard, who reviewed the video for AFP on September 22.4,824 Russians who arrived in Finland via the border with Russia on September 21, compared with 3,133 one week prior on September 14.
The line the evening of September 21 stretched only for about 250 meters and remained similar the following morning, Ahvonen said -- a far cry from the backlog spanning 35 kilometers that some posts sharing the out-of-context video on social media described. "Yesterday's traffic was still less than the weekend traffic, and clearly less than the traffic volumes before the pandemic," the Finnish Border Guard