A version of this piece was published in Foreign Policy
The Kremlin seeks to use the past to shape the future
Russia has since 1991 used history as a weapon to attack and delegitimize its neighbours. Now it has Finland in its gunsights. The splenetic ex-president Dmitry Medvedev is the top Finland-basher. He posted on X on that the Bolsheviks’ recognition of Finnish independence from Russia in 1917 was a “blunder” and that the Finns must pay for their “vile Russophobia.”
Medvedev kicked off last year in a lengthy essay titled “The New Finnish Doctrine: Stupidity, Lies, Ingratitude, ” which argued that the Finnish leadership’s newly hawkish stance had “ruined” good relations built up over decades. He cited wartime Finland’s “bloody partnership” with Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich, highlighting Finnish participation in the starvation-siege of Leningrad. By joining NATO in 2023, Medvedev wrote, the “pro-American puppet authorities” in Helsinki lost their right to any “political pardon” from Moscow; Finland now “directly and rudely tramples” on the historical and legal basis for its existence as an independent state. Russia, he argued, is therefore entitled to renounce the treaties under which it recognized Finland’s independence, sovereignty, and borders; litigate charges of genocide and warmongering; and claim reparations from Helsinki for World War II-era damage. All this, he wrote, “could lead to the collapse of Finnish statehood once and for all.”
In a newly published study for the Swedish Psychological Defence Agency, Patrik Oksanen—one of the country’s leading experts in Russian dirty tricks—explains how local courts and activist groups in neighboring regions of Russia are used “to provide a façade of legitimacy and grassroots support,” constructing a “false juridical foundation for potential reparations or even — in the long term — territorial claims” against Finland. . The campaign can also include actions such as removing Finnish war memorials from formerly Finnish battlefields that are now in Russia, disrupting commemorative events at these sites, and harassing diplomats—all of which have occurred in the past year. Russia also mounts physical attacks on seabed infrastructure.
Putin’s advisor on “historical affairs,” former Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky, plays a leading role. So too does Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who recently penned an introduction to a lengthy work of pseudo-history arguing that Lithuania’s statehood over the past seven centuries is bogus. Three senior Russian lawmakers amplified Medvedev’s latest statements, claiming that Finland is a pseudo-state that is stoking tensions with Russia, which may well be forced to take drastic measures in response—just the sort of language that preceded Russia’s attack on Ukraine. This war of words involves Russia’s security and intelligence services, courts, the Foreign Ministry, prosecutors, politicians, government officials, think tanks, Kremlin-aligned “activists,” the official media, Western shills, and anonymous social media accounts. The Russian Foreign Ministry website has published a “Black Book,” outlining endemic Russophobia in Finland and Sweden.
Russia can escalate further. It is easy to imagine operations moving onto Finnish territory: anonymous vandalizing of museums or monuments or Russian-orchestrated actions that would purport to show that pro-Nazi, far-right elements in Finland are on the rise. However trivial and symbolic such stunts may seem, they damage the targeted country’s international image. They also spread anxiety, fear, confusion, and polarization in the population. This would make two wins for Russia before a single shot is fired.
So far, the Russian attacks have made little impact. Finnish officials dislike discussing these and other provocations publicly. Why draw further attention to such nonsense? The country’s strategic culture, honed during decades of uncomfortable neutrality during the Cold War, involves speaking quietly, slowly, and rarely on sensitive topics, and with remarkable message discipline across the whole of government and society.
That approach may be facing its most serious test for decades.
Edward Lucas is a writer with more than thirty years’ experience in this region.
Photo credit: Valery Tenevoy on Unsplash