According to Statistics Finland, a total of 6,003 people moved from Russia to Finland last year, making it the leading source country for immigration.
Immigration to Finland has increased overall, with nearly 50,000 people moving to the country, compared to an average of 29,000 to 36,000 in recent years.
Since the early 1990s, annual migration from Russia to Finland has remained below 3,100.
“We can see that Russia has a lot of pressures at the moment, which are clearly related to the war in Ukraine,” Johannes Hirvela, director of development at the Finnish immigration service, told AFP.
Many Russians arrived as asylum seekers,” he added, pointing out that at the same time many arrived for “work reasons”.
“Finnish employers also left Russia and some of them wanted their Russian employees to work in Finland,” Hirvela added.
Russia was followed by Sweden, India, Estonia and the Philippines as the top countries of origin.
Source: DN
