Immigration from Russia to Finland reached a record high last year, surpassing even what was experienced 30 years ago, when the USSR collapsed, Statistics Finland announced on Wednesday.
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In 2022, slightly more than 6,000 people immigrated from Russia to Finland, of which 94% were Russian citizens.
Among them, the number of women and men is almost equal.
In 1991, when the USSR collapsed, about 5,500 people immigrated to Finland from the former communist empire.
In the period from 1992 to 1995, the number of immigrants from Russia reached 1,700 to 2,600 people annually, but until 2001, the annual number of Russian immigrants did not exceed 3,100.
Juhana Nordbergs, the senior statistician of Statistics Finland, stated that the increase in the number of Russian immigrants is directly related to the repeated Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, as most of the immigrants arrived in Finland last year between May and December.
Finland’s Immigration Service announced last week that 1,109 Russian citizens who evaded conscription have applied for asylum so far.
In total, about 50,000 immigrants arrived last year, while in the two previous years their number reached 29 and 36 thousand, respectively.
After the Russians, the largest number of immigrants came from Sweden, India, Estonia, the Philippines, Ukraine and Turkey.
Tags: number immigrants Russia increased dramatically Finland
