Terrain work would begin today “with forest clearance and will proceed in such a way that road construction and fence installation can be started in March”, the Finnish border guard said in a statement.
The 3km pilot project at the border crossing near Imatra is expected to be completed by the end of June, it added. Construction of a further 70km, mainly in southeastern Finland, will take place between 2023 and 2025.
The fence will be more than 3 metres tall with barbed wire at the top, and particularly sensitive areas will be equipped with night vision cameras, lights and loudspeakers.

A senior border guard walks along a fence marking the boundary area between Finland and the Russian Federation near the border crossing of Pelkola, in Imatra, Finland. Photo taken on 18 November 2022. Photograph: Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP/Getty Images
Currently, Finland’s borders are secured primarily by light wooden fences, mainly designed to stop livestock.
Although the Finland-Russia border has “worked well” in the past, Brig Gen Jari Tolppanen told AFP in November that the war in Ukraine had changed the security situation “fundamentally” and that a border fence was “indispensable” to stop large-scale illegal entries from Russian territory.