Russia is shutting down all railway border crossings with Finland, Estonia and Latvia starting July 1, closing seven checkpoints along its northwestern frontier in what the government described as a temporary suspension. According to Russian state media Tass, Russia’s Foreign Ministry has been instructed to formally notify all three countries of the decision.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. “Temporarily suspend from July 1, 2026, the movement of persons, vehicles, goods and cargo through railway checkpoints across the state border of the Russian Federation on individual sections of the state border of the Russian Federation according to the list in the appendix,” the decree states. Seven checkpoints affected Five of the closures fall on the Russian-Finnish border, according to Big Kyiv: Vyborg in the Leningrad region, Vyartsilya in Karelia, Lyuttya in Karelia, St. Petersburg-Finlyandsky in St. Petersburg and Svetogorsk in the Leningrad region. The remaining two are single checkpoints – Pechory-Pskovskiye in the Pskov region on the Estonian border and Pytalovo, also in the Pskov region, on the Latvian border. The closures cut one of the few remaining direct land transport links between Russia and its EU neighbours along this stretch of the frontier. Broader pattern of escalation along NATO’s eastern flank Russia’s northwestern borders with Finland and the Baltic States have reportedly seen mounting tensions since Finland and Sweden joined NATO in 2023 and 2024, respectively. All three countries have increasingly raised concerns over Russian military activity and hybrid threats near their territory.