Finland To Demolish Russian Consulate Building

The decision was unanimously adopted by the city council.

The authorities of the Finnish city of Turku will buy the former building of the Russian Consulate General and then demolish it. As The Moscow Times reports with reference to Yle , the decision was unanimously adopted by the city council on Monday, November 27.

The municipality will pay 1.6 million euros for a 3,500 square metre plot of land on which a 2,000 square metre building was built in 1974. It will be replaced by a new building, presumably a kindergarten.

City services will have to clean up the soil on the site beforehand, as there was a foundry and a zinc factory on the site in the early 1900s.

The purchase decision will be honoured regardless of its legal validity: the authorities will not wait to consider possible appeals.

President Sauli Niiste warned about closing the Russian consulate in Turku back in July 2023. Then he announced retaliatory measures after the expulsion of nine Finnish diplomats from the Russian Federation and closing the consulate general in St Petersburg.

"We are preparing a similar measure. The analogue of the consulate general in St. Petersburg in Finland is the Russian consulate general in Turku," Niiniste tweeted.

The consulate general worked until September 30, after which the Finnish authorities terminated the lease agreement. Its functions were transferred to the Russian embassy in Helsinki, and the building, which was built for the Soviet diplomatic mission, was thoroughly checked by the police after the diplomats left.