What are all those red spots?
When that map popped up on French TV’s news broadcast, I was like “oh my god, what are all those red spots on the Finland’s border?” The picture which I later identified as The U.S. National Security Archives’ nuclear targets showed the Russian nuclear bomb locations. Sorry fellow compatriots, you are sitting on a ticking time bomb.
Back in the Soviet era
When I wrote the pages about Finnish teenage punk rockers back in the cold war era discussing about the Soviet threat and joining or not joining the armed forces, I could NEVER imagine that those same thoughts would cross our minds at the moment when my book is coming out. Since the beginning of Russian attacks on Ukraine many people have asked me about Finland and the Finno-Russian war. Hope the key facts here below help to answer these questions.
Finland has the European Union’s longest border with Russia, 1,340 kilometers/ 830 miles. The Finnish defense forces are based on a mandatory male conscription. Though an alternative non-military service in available, around 80% of the male population complete the military service. Some 300 women volunteers enter the armed service every year.
Finland is not a member of any military alliance. The government is currently considering the possibility of joining NATO.
The Finnish population is 5,5 million.
Finland was a part of the Kingdom of Sweden until 1809 when the Russian Emperor captured the region which then became a Grand Duchy of Finland.
Taking advantage of the Russian revolution, Finland declared its independence in 1917. In 1939 the Soviet forces attacked Finland and launched the Winter War. The USSR’s goal was to invade the whole country, but the war ended with a treaty forcing Finland to cede around ten percent of its land to the Soviet Union.
The term Fnlandization refers to the cold war period when Finland desperately tried to keep a low profile and avoid doing anything which could eventually provoke the big Eastern neighbor.
Since Kremlin banned the use of the word “war”, a French news magazine Marianne suggests renaming Tolstoy’s famous novel to “Special Military Operation and Peace”.
Some columnists like James Stavridis and Harry Howard have pointed out the similarities with the Finno-Russian war, also called the Winter War. Others like Heberto Limas-Villers go further by asking why the Russians are now repeating the same mistakes with Ukrainians they made with the Finns 70 years ago when the Red Army crossed the border with their military bands believing in a quick victory. Stalin badly underestimated the outnumbered and outgunned Finns, who defended their own land and families with Molotov cocktails. Sounds like déja vu?
Once the war over, any democratic country would have gathered their highest military rankings for a debriefing to figure out what went wrong and how to improve the performance in the future. Not a dictatorship. A totalitarian system can’t learn from its mistakes simply because there had been no mistakes and their history is written accordingly. As we all have heard, there is no war in Ukraine and Kremlin even banned the use of the word “war”. Consequently, there is no killed or wounded soldiers, no prisoners, without mentioning the failed strategies. The victorious military operation is carried out exactly like it was planned. Nothing to learn this time either. In case you didn’t know, according to Russian history books it was the minuscule Finland who attacked Soviet Union during the Second World War. Aren’t we brave?
Some useful Finnish sayings
Don’t russ your business
Finnish dictionary contains a verb “ryssiä” which, as you already guessed, comes from the word Russia. It means doing a bad work or stupidly spoiling your business. To give you a concrete example, the Finnish construction companies who started doing business with Russians after the USSR had collapsed soon realized that instead of waiting the new shopping center to be constructed the Russians preferred to dismantle during the night what had been built the previous day and steal the construction materials. That’s how you can russ your business.
Siberia teaches you
Referring to the remote penal colonies in Siberia in the Russian Far East, the Finnish expression “Siperia opettaa”, literally translated Siberia teaches, means that one learns the hard way. Once bitten twice shy.