Europe shops for a new Iron Curtain

In 1946, Winston Churchill announced an "iron curtain" had descended across Europe "from Stettin in the Baltic, to Trieste in the Adriatic". This time it is the west that is building the barriers.

- NATASHA LINDSTAEDT

Every European nation bordering Russia is accelerating plans to construct hundreds of miles of fortified border to defend against possible Russian aggression.

The reasons are clear. The post-cold war European security framework—which relied on strengthening international institutions and trade, NATO expansion and US military guarantees—is being eroded.

Sharing an 832-mile border with Russia, Finland proposed building a wall in 2023 that would cover about 15 per cent of its border, costing over US$400 million and with hopes that it will be completed by 2026.

Motivated in part by Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but also due to a rise of Russians fleeing to Finland to escape conscription, Finland's government passed a law in July 2023 to build stronger and taller fences, as the previous wooden fences were designed only to prevent livestock from crossing. Eight border posts were erected (including north of the Arctic Circle) alongside greater obstacles in the southernmost strip of the country.

There are even defenses being erected in remote areas of north-eastern Finland, where in the not-too-distant past, a steady flow of Russian and Finns would regularly come and go across the border to buy groceries.