Finland faces its fear of being alone as Nato debate intensifies

All is quiet on the EU's eastern front. Beneath an azure sky in rural Finland, snow still sits in fields of silver birch trees and black soil. The nippy spring breeze, though, is nothing compared to the political chill hanging over this corner of Europe for the last two months.

At the eastern Finnish checkpoint of Nuijamaa, where the capital, Helsinki, is further away than Russia's second city of St Petersburg, Petri Kurkinen, deputy chief of the local border police, shows The Irish Times around.

“You can hear the birds sing, it’s very peaceful and I sure hope it stays that way,” he says.

Before the pandemic, up to 12,000 private cars and 800 lorries passed here daily. But now, even as Finland rolls back its final Covid-19 restrictions, traffic is down to as few as 300 cars and no more than 20 lorries daily. War and the resulting sanctions have brought border trade to a standstill while only Russians with a concrete reason – family, property, medical – are permitted to enter Finland and the EU.

Zelenskiy says Russia came close to capturing him at start of invasion

---

Refugee joins Irish relief effort to help Ukrainians flee

---

Peace in Ukraine: What will it take and how can it happen?

---

The road heading west is as empty as the shopping car parks alongside. I was last here in 2015, when the first wave of Ukraine-related EU sanctions had yet to hit the lucrative Russian day tripper border trade.

Today the Finnish town of Lappeenranta, 30km from the border, says it is losing €1 million a day in revenue because of absent Russian visitors. But the corresponding squeeze on public finances is secondary to the shock and deep disappointment at how decades of close, fruitful cross-border relations have been destroyed by Vladimir Putin.

"We used to be proud of being a gateway between east and west, but not now," says mayor Kimmo Jarva. "I was once in St Petersburg once a month promoting our region but now we've torn up all our tourism brochures."

If war comes, he says, Lappeenranta is ready. Like all Finnish mayors, he has spent the last weeks checking stockpiles of emergency supplies and his cyber warfare defence system. He insists the town’s bunkers can house the entire population of 73,000.

“The nearest bunker is just 50m away,” he says with a calm Finnish pragmatism. “We are not nervous, we are prepared.”

Unthinkable solution

On Wednesday, National Veterans' Day, prime minister Sanna Marin came to town meet Finland's last second World War soldiers. The 36-year-old politician told them her generation "has had to face the fact that power politics and war can be a reality in Europe, even in the 2020s".

"Co-operation with Russia is not possible as long as the brutal attack [on Ukraine] continues," she said. "We will not be left to fend for ourselves if our security is called into question. We will choose our own foreign and security policy solutions."

The likely solution – joining Nato as soon as possible – was unthinkable just two months ago. But the war in Ukraine has triggered a deep fear in the Finnish soul: the fear of being left alone.

The prospect of a third world war has awakened old ghosts of the second, when Finland found itself trapped between Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union, forced into shifting alliances, painful compromises and the loss of land and pride.

In the cold war era, balanced precariously on the rim of the eastern bloc, Finland focused on placating its large eastern neighbour, with which it shares a 1,300km border, while preparing quietly for the day many feel now has come.

*****

Inside Helsinki’s austere parliament, visitors walk through a low rotunda where each footstep on the marble floor creates multiple, cracking echoes above. One floor up, outside the main chamber and committee rooms, huddles of MPs discuss political action and reaction.

Before Russia invaded Ukraine no more than a third of Finns were ever in favour of joining Nato; now almost two thirds want to apply to join the military alliance within weeks, ideally with Sweden.

The cost-risk calculation, for decades in favour of neutrality and non-alignment, began to shift when Finland joined the EU in 1995; now it has flipped completely.

"There is no standstill position anymore where everything could be like it was earlier, that is what the Finns and Finnish MPs have realised," says Pekka Haavisto, Finland's foreign minister.

Behind the detailed debate – over Nato costs, burden, timing and the logistics of applying for membership – is a shared historical trauma, he says, of war and its cost. Haavisto tells how his father was evacuated from the city of Vyborg, part of the 10 per cent of Finnish territory lost to the Soviet Union.

“We have many Finns who left,” he say, his voice trailing off, before adding with a distant smile: “We are a very security-oriented people.”

But will Nato membership bring more or less security to Finland? That is the question plaguing Finns – and their parliamentarians who will eventually have to vote on the issue.

While almost all political parties have indicated their support, many MPs have serious doubts. Sporting a peace badge in his lapel, Social Democrat Erkki Tuomioja – a former foreign minister and long-time Nato sceptic – describes the Finnish debate as "theatre for a decision that has already been made".

Given that Helsinki already spends nearly two per cent of its gross domestic product on defence, the Nato minimum, Tuomioja believes existing alliance members “see us as contributors to security and not consumers”.

The popular promise of Nato membership – its one-for-all, all-for-one mutual defence clause – is not compelling for him.

“If there is a crisis everyone will take care of themselves first,” he said. “If there was a third world war, Finland would be destroyed before we could be liberated by Nato.”

Putin’s lies

Similarly sceptical about Nato and its security guarantees are members of the Left Alliance, such as parliamentary leader Jussi Saramo.

He has no illusions about Putin’s lies but is wary of what he sees as panic-mongering over the real level of threat among political class and Finnish media.

“Apparently if we join Nato we do it only because of Russia, but we cannot allow the Russians to decide for us what we do,” he said. “Myself I am very pragmatic on this issue, I want to maximise Finnish security, but I am not sure Nato will do this for us. In the end we will be defending Finland ourselves.”

Back in Lappeenranta’s LUT University, Russia expert Juha Väätänen has seen the Ukraine war undermine decades of research work. When EU sanctions severed all academic co-operations with Russia, he shifted to studying the effects of the sanctions themselves. The economic effects have been remarkably effective, he says, with the Russian economy, income levels and oil production set to drop 15, 10 and 17 per cent respectively.

Just as interesting, he says, is the political cohesion it has generated across the EU – and in Finland, as the country debates Nato membership.

“Our president said that, with the attack, Russia’s mask slipped and I think he put it well,” says Prof Väätänen. “As a result, Finland is united like never before.”

Back in town, members of Lappeenranta’s small Russian community are following events nervously, from the Ukraine invasion and Finland’s looming Nato application to the uncertain future beyond.

“History is a loop, everything comes around again,” says Ruslan, a young man from St Petersburg, waiting on the train platform. “I always hoped that, when history returned, it would start far away from me.”