When Soviet troops invaded Finland in November 1939, while projectiles set fire to the frozen cities of the country of a thousand lakes and protests spread outside the embassies of the USSR, Stalin’s then foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, assured that what the Soviet planes were dropping were food parcels and not cluster bombs. With their characteristic black humor, the Finns nicknamed the RRAB-3 as “Molotov’s bread baskets”, and thought that nothing better to accompany such an explosive lunch than a cocktail. Small homemade incendiary bombs had already been used a few years earlier in the Spanish Civil War, but it was the Finns who baptized them with a name that will go down in history: the ‘Molotov cocktail’.
Now that the breweries of Ukraine are becoming the factories of this illustrious combination, it is easy to find parallels between the enormous courage that the Ukrainians are showing in the face of Russian aggression and the courage and cunning of the Finns of that time to stop the feet of the very powerful Union Soviet. But in Finland, the Winter War, now a national myth, not only stirs up memories of resistance, it also highlights something obvious: the threat shares a 1,300-kilometre border with them.
Finland is not the only country in the European Union that borders Russia but, unlike its Baltic neighbors of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Finland is not a member of NATO. In recent weeks, Moscow has again threatened Helsinki and Stockholm with “serious consequences” if they choose to join the Atlantic Alliance. Last Wednesday, the Russian embassy in Finland published a disturbing message on Twitter asking its compatriots and Russophone Finns – some 80,000 in the country – to contact them to report cases of discrimination or incitement to hatred that they may have suffered. It escapes no one in Finland that Moscow has already used the excuse of “protecting the Russian minority” to attack Ukraine.
Sweden. Army patrol on the Baltic Sea island of Gotland. /
62% support
But the threats have not unleashed panic among the Finns but, in fact, have achieved just the opposite of what they intended: If five years ago only 19% of Finns supported joining NATO, the figure has grown up to 62% this week, according to a survey conducted for public radio and television. Many members of the Russian-speaking minority have contacted the embassy, but to denounce Russia’s war crimes.
“It is typical Russian behavior and we are used to it,” acknowledges by telephone Alexander Stubb, who led the Finnish government between 2014 and 2015, and who has also been Minister of Foreign Affairs and Economy. The neighbor’s breath on the back of the neck is not perceived, for the moment, as an imminent threat. “But in the long term, we Finns have understood that the security situation in Europe has changed radically. Now we are facing a Europe that has been divided into two: on the one hand, an isolated and aggressive Russia, which is authoritarian and totalitarian and nothing stops it from trying to achieve its interests; and, on the other, an alliance of democracies with different types of adherence to the European Union and NATO. This division is going to force us to rethink our security, ”assumes the former prime minister.
The request to join the Alliance, in Stubb’s opinion, “is not going to be a matter of days or weeks, but neither will it be a matter of years, but rather of months”, and it will not require a plebiscite either: “a referendum would be a security risk because we would have a lot of Russian trolls interfering with information, as seen in the US elections in 2016 or with Brexit. We don’t want to take that political risk.”
Finland knows something about how to deal with Russia. It was part of the Russian empire for more than two decades, in the 20th century alone it fought three wars against its powerful neighbors and lost part of its territory – which is still Russian today – and survived the Cold War using a policy which they baptized as “Finlandization”, which basically consisted of trying not to irritate the Soviet giant. Pure and simple ‘Realpolitik’ that got Finland to maintain its sovereignty.
For a long time, explains Tommi Nieminen, a journalist for the leading Finnish daily, the Helsingin Sanomat, “there has been a generation gap between politicians who were born in the 1950s or 1960s and who had to learn to deal pragmatically with the Russians, who looked to the West but who wanted to have the best possible relations with Russia, and the younger generations who want to be a completely Western country and forget about Russia. Today that pragmatism has been broken. If there was any doubt, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has finally cleared it up. Although there is no panic, the concern among Finns is very real, Nieminen points out. “There is no talk of anything else. The other night I was at a birthday party and that was the only topic of conversation. Above all, he worries about what Russia can do after the war in Ukraine, “acknowledges the reporter.
“It is where it is”
Like other European countries, Finland has turned to Ukraine but, as Minna Huotilainen, professor of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki, recalls, “Finns have always had a very special relationship with Russia. We cannot move the country, it is where it is. There are about 30,000 Russians living in Finland, they are our students, friends and colleagues.” His university has mobilized to welcome Ukrainian students and teachers into its programs.
“The younger generations want to be a western country and forget about Russia”
Tommy Nieminen | Helsingin Sanomat journalist
That pragmatism or realism is what has meant that, unlike other countries, Finland did not cut defense spending after the Cold War. Military service is still compulsory for men (voluntary for women), who then go to the reserve of a country that barely exceeds 5.5 million inhabitants. “In Finland we have always paid a lot of attention to our national security. We have one of the strongest armies in Europe. Our cooperation with NATO is already very intense and I think it will be even more so in the future”, acknowledges the Director General of the Department of Russia and Eastern Europe of the Finnish Foreign Ministry, Marja Liivala. Russian threats about NATO, she says, “we’ve heard many times in the last year, so it’s nothing new. But in Finland we are going to make our own security decisions based on our interests.”
Although Finland, like the rest of the European countries, has closed its airspace to Russia, the land border remains open, although traffic between the two countries has decreased by 90%, mainly due to the pandemic, Liivala acknowledges, but now also due to the war. in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia. “The relationship, of course, has been greatly altered. Right now, all the bilateral and regional cooperation and interaction that we had, especially in the Arctic Sea and the Baltic region, is suspended or frozen due to the Russian attack,” the official explains.
“The situation in Europe has changed radically. It will force us to rethink our security”
Alexander Stub | Former Prime Minister of Finland
“We have one of the strongest armies in Europe. Our cooperation with NATO is already very intense.”
Marja Liivala | Finnish Foreign Ministry
Where they suffer this reduction in border traffic on a daily basis is in cities like Lappeenranta, just 30 kilometers from Russia and which, before the pandemic, received a lot of tourism from the neighboring country. When the sector timidly began to regain some strength, the crisis in Ukraine has dealt a new blow. “Russian tourists spent 1 million euros a day in the region, and that has been lost,” explains Kimmo Jarva, mayor of this picturesque town, by email. But many, more than economic losses, fear personal losses. In Lappeenranta, which has a population of 73,000, 3,000 Russians live and many others have relatives across the border. “Many are worried that the border will be closed and they will not be able to continue seeing their relatives,” lamented the alderman.
singular border
“Compared to the rest of Finland, the border is a unique place to live in many ways,” says Eeva Sederholm, editor of the local daily, the Etelä-Saimaa. Ella sederholm acknowledges that, “although there is no panic, two weeks ago the Finns ran out of stocks of iodine tablets in pharmacies”, something that has also happened in other countries. In addition, “many neighbors have made sure they have enough supplies to survive a couple of days without electricity, as the authorities have been recommending for years,” says the journalist.
Mayor Jarva agrees that “people react differently, with some feeling more of a need to prepare than others. There are people who have looked for the nearest shelters and have bought medicine and supplies for several days. However, he adds, the concern of the residents of Lappeenranta is not very different from that of the rest of Europe: “people are more concerned about the increase in gas, gasoline and food prices than about anything else.”
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