Mobile connections that were interrupted last week will work normally again from the end of the week.
The Consulate General of Finland in St. Petersburg noticed interruptions in mobile phone connections last week. The outages were especially related to outgoing calls. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the information to on Monday.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ communication says that the outages were caused by “challenges related to bank payments after Russia froze the accounts of Finnish embassies”.
The problems at the Consulate General did not last long, as connections were fully opened by the end of the week.
No similar outages were observed at the Embassy of Finland in Moscow.
– The situation at the embassy in Moscow was normal, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs states.
Russia has frozen the accounts of Finnish embassies in Russia. Foreign minister Pekka Haavisto (green) said at the time that the matter came to light on April 27. Spokesman of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova described the freeze as “a symmetrical response to the actions that have been taken against Russian diplomats in Finland”.
Silencing telephone signals is not a new phenomenon in St. Petersburg. Last year, the St. Petersburg administration announced buying equipment to block phone signals. According to the local media, there is no information on where and how the devices are used. Fontanka newspaper from St. Petersburg news, that cell phone signals have previously been silenced during demonstrations. This year, the mobile internet was disabled at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum. State-owned news agency TASS reasoned operation with technical works.
The Finnish embassy in Moscow was attacked by masked people last December. In April, suspicious letters with powder were found inside the embassy.