By our War Correspondent.
Now RUSSIAN Citizens have started to flee their homeland: Citizens pack trains to Finland, fearful that Putin will shut the borders, leaving them unable to escape fall-out from Western sanctions.6
St Petersburg train station was packed with Russian passengers desperate to travel to Helsinki on Thursday ‘We decided with our families to go back as soon as possible, because it’s unclear what the situation will be in a week,’ Muscovite Polina Poliakova said.
Travelling ‘is hard now because everything is getting cancelled,’ added Beata Iukhtanova, her friend who studies with her in Paris, where the pair were headed.
The Allegro express train linking St Petersburg to the Finnish capital is currently the only open rail route between Russia and the EU . The trains coming from St Petersburg to Helsinki are now full for the next few days,’ said Topi Simola, senior vice president of Finnish railway operator. VR said Russians are now starting to flee their own country and are packing trains to Finland over fears that President Vladimir Putin will shut the borders and leave them unable to escape the fall-out from Western sanctions.
Helsinki train station was packed with Russian passengers desperately fleeing from St Petersburg on Thursday. It is therefore one of the few remaining ways out of the country since the widespread airspace closures in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a week ago.’The trains coming from St Petersburg to Helsinki are now full for the next few days,’ said Topi Simola, senior vice president of Finnish railway operator VR.
He said that passenger numbers jumped on Saturday, two days after Moscow began its assault on Ukraine. Since then, people’s motives for travelling on the 3.5 hour twice-a-day service appear to have changed, Simola said.
‘We can see from the luggage they carry that people are moving to somewhere else, they are basically moving for good.’ The Allegro train to Helsinki is, however, only open to a select few. Russia stipulates that passengers must be Russian or Finnish citizens, a visa is required, and passengers must prove they have an EU-recognised Covid vaccination, not the Sputnik dose which is most commonly given in Russia. Most passengers are therefore Russians who live or work in Europe, such as 14-year-old Maria and her mother Svetlana, who took a last-minute train to Finland after the cancellation of their flight on Sunday back to Austria, where they live.
Ratified or Edited by Deepak Bora.