On September 21, 2022, Vladimir Putin announces a military mobilization, giving way to public protests and flight from Russia abroad. The latter, however, were told through dated videos and unsubstantiated statements. The source of the phantom snakes from 35 km on the Finnish border are from a tweet by Sotiri Dimpinoudis, already known on Open Fact-checking for a fake video, sharing a clip to prove what he says. Video also captured by Open, made after a review before the military mobilization announcement.
For those in a hurry
- The video shared by Sotiri was published by a Youtube channel on September 19, 2022.
- Sotiri in no way demonstrates the existence of 35 km queues.
- The Finnish authorities initially stated that they did not see any increase in traffic to their country.
- Finnish authorities subsequently confirm a subsequent increase in traffic, albeit still manageable and not at levels seen in the past during the pandemic.
- The Russian media reported on the testimonies of citizens crossing the border and noted waiting times of up to 3 or 5 hours for border crossing.
analyses
Here is the text of the tweet published by Sotiri:
#Breaking: just in – The traffic jam at the #Russia/#Finland border has piled up to 35KM and is increasing every hour, it’s the only border still open for Russian civilians with Shengen visas, according to #Putin announced he will send 300,000 new troops to #Ukraine.
A first anomaly
The video really shows the border between Russia and Finland. What is strange is that with the current temperatures between 10 and 11 degrees, there is a man in shorts. It’s not the only one, but let’s move on.
An alleged 35 km queue cannot be determined from the video. All you see is a line of waiting cars, but not long enough to confirm Sotiri’s claims.
An outdated video
The video has been published by TikTok user @igorinrussia for three days. The same creator publishes a comment in his post claiming that it was shot before the announcement of military mobilization and asking everyone not to spread it with a different and misleading context (“This video was shot before announcements, don’t take it out context please”).
An exact date of publication of the video can be found on his Youtube channel: September 19, 2022.
The queues were there, but not that long
Thanks to Google Street View, we can confirm that the video was shot on the Vaalimaa border.
This is the same point on the Russia-Finland border as stated in a tweet posted at 6:15 p.m. on September 21, 2022 by the Chief of Finland’s Border Guard Matti Pitkäniitty:
Vaalimaa is the busiest border crossing on the Finnish-Russian land border. You can see the situation live from the weather camera. This is from the west side of the border crossing point. The lane on the left is for cars entering Finland, and the queue on the right is the exit to Russia.
Matti shares a link to the Fintraffic service, where it is possible to see the history of screenshots from surveillance cameras at the border. We recovered her from September 21, 2022 3pm to the following day. Here are the images collected from Open on September 21 from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.:
The situation is different at night, when a line forms, which is disposed of around 3 a.m.
The Finnish version
As the Finnish media pointed out, in the late afternoon of September 21 there were no particularly large queues at the border with Russia. A confirmed situation, e.g made known also from the official Twitter account of the Finnish border guards:
The situation on Finland’s borders has not changed with the announcement of Russian moilization. Videos are circulating on social media, some of which have already been shot and have now been taken out of context. There is incorrect information floating around.
in the a tweet next, released at 11:00 am on September 22nd, claim that overnight inbound traffic increased even compared to the previous weeks. However, the number of cars in no way confirms the kilometer-long queues and the situation is under control:
Incoming traffic at the eastern border increased during the night. Traffic has increased compared to previous weeks, but crowds are still small compared to pre-pandemic times. Our resources are sufficient and the situation is under control.
Matti Pitkäniitty, in a tweet published on the morning of September 22, 2022, it said traffic at the border increased overnight and that as of September 21, around 4,824 Russian citizens had crossed the border.
The Russian version
Several articles published in the Russian media speak of “impressive traffic jams” in the direction of the Finnish border. Fontanka.ru reports on the photos sent by a reader reporting a waiting time of around two and a half hours to cross the border.
Throughout September 22, 2022, media outlets such as NGS55.ru report that traffic jams on the border between Russia and Finland are increasing. According to the article, published around 1 p.m., some Russian citizens were asleep in their cars, waiting for passage. The article reports on the information from the Nagranitse.ru website, where they would have encountered queues of 75 cars at the border in the direction of Vaalimaa.
The website 78.ru also reports the testimonies of Russian citizens who tried to cross the border during the day and had to wait up to 5 hours. Many of these testimonies may have come from a Nagranitse Telegram where users share their photos and experiences trying to cross the border.
“This is the queue from Russia,” explains the user, who posted the photo on Russia’s Telegram group, with a message sent around midnight on September 21-22.
Conclusions
The video released by Sotiri and recorded by various media (including Open) has nothing to do with the announcement of Vladimir Putin’s military mobilization. The recordings were released days earlier. The presence of a phantom snake 35 km towards the Finnish border is not proven in any way. After the announcement by the Helsinki authorities, traffic began to increase throughout the evening with long waits, Russian users on a Telegram channel and Russian media reported. However, the situation remains under control and is manageable for the Finnish authorities.
We also thank the colleagues at Ellinikahoaxes for providing us with some of the missing items for our review.
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