Vatnik Soup
Soup number140
Date31.03.2023
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Finland and NATO

In today’s #vatniksoup I’ll introduce hand-picked anti-NATO commentary by various Finnish, pro-Kremlin voices. As of today, all 30 NATO countries have ratified Finland’s application to NATO, which resulted in many unhappy Finnish Putin fans.

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One of the biggest anti-NATO figures in Finland has been Panu Huuhtanen (@HuuhtanenPanu). Panu has a long history of organizing demonstrations, and lately he’s been active in protesting against Finland’s NATO membership. He’s also a HUGE fan of Vladimir Putin.

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In May 2022, he tweeted that Finland and Sweden can “stop this NATO mess” based on Erdogan’s political statements. In Jul 2022, he continued this narrative on Russian social media platform, VKontakte. He’s often acting as a “journalist” at anti-NATO demonstrations.

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Kremlin-paid “independent journalist”, “Finnish patriot” and editor-in-Chief of fake news blog MV-Lehti, Janus Putkonen (@janus_putkonen) has been trying to stop Finland’s NATO process since it begun.

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MV-Lehti is the biggest Kremlin information laundering service in Finland and Putkonen’s financial ties to Kremlin have been proven in a 2016 e-mail leaks.

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Putkonen and his pals even wrote an appeal to Hungary’s Parliament at the wake of their ratification vote in March 2023.

In the past Janus lived in Luhansk, Ukraine, but his current location is unknown - he most probably already fled to Russia.

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Johan Bäckman (@johanbek) is Finland’s oldest and biggest (literally and figuratively) Russian troll. He’s been involved in spreading and promoting pro-Kremlin narratives for good 20 years, and he’s not showing any signs of slowing down. He’s the gentleman with the Z symbol.
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He’s currently candidate for the Finnish parliamentary election in the pro-Russian party VKK. Johans’s organized the “Great NATO discussion”, a anti-NATO propaganda talk, often featuring the most prominent Finnish pro-Russian propagandists.

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Bäckman’s often “representing Finnish views” on Russian national TV. He’s also been convicted of stalking YLE journalist Jessikka Aro to a 60-day suspended prison sentence.

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Ano Turtiainen (@TurtiainenAno) is the chairperson of the political party VKK ("Power to the People"). Their pro-Russian stance has been evident for a long time, and after February 2022, Ano has spread pro-Russian narratives on social media on almost daily basis.

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Ossi Tiihonen (@OssiTiihonen) is the chairperson of the political party Vapauden Liitto ("Alliance for Freedom"). He became prominent with his COVID-19 antivaxx and climate change critical theories, and after Russia started their full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he ...

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...started touting his pro-Russian views. On social media he’s more focused on the WEF/Great Reset conspiracy theory, but he’s often stated that Finland should “normalize” relations with Russia and start buying their energy again.

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Then there’s also Juha Korhonen (@Juha_Korh2), a candidate for Vapauden Liitto, but not even the people in his political sphere care what he says.

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To conclude: As was expected, Finland’s application to NATO was ratified in a record time and a small group of conspiracy theorists and pro-Kremlin puppets couldn’t do a thing to stop it.

I’m also sure that our little brother Sweden will be allowed to join NATO soon, too.

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