Today’s Finnish #vatnik report may ruffle some feathers. It’s a story about how love... sorry, business conquers all. Our main character (for once) is someone who has immense influence in the 🇫🇮 politics. His name is Paavo Lipponen, a former, two-term Prime Minister of 🇫🇮 1/7

During 2008-2022, Lipponen lobbied the infamous, Gazprom (i.e. 🇷🇺-state) owned Nord Stream gas pipe. This job was offered to him by two Germans and Putin’s BFF’s: ex-chancellor of Germany, Gerhard Schröder, and a former Stasi agent Matthias Warnig. 2/7

Before joining their crew, Lipponen consulted 🇫🇮 current president, Tarja Halonen and PM Matti Vanhanen about the job, and they okay’d it. Month after the first meeting between Lipponen, Schröder and Warnig, 🇷🇺 invaded 🇬🇪. They had already invaded Chechnya for the 2nd time before. 3/7

To Lipponen’s defense, his plan to switch from nuclear (that was shunned after the Chernobyl incident) to gas was already hatched back in the ’90s. It was initially planned to be coordinated with 🇸🇪, but after they refused, the focus was steered to 🇷🇺’s gas fields. 4/7

During ’07-’21, Cosmopolis (Lipponen’s company) had made ~3, 4 million euros in profit and Nord Stream AG was most definitely one of the company’s biggest clients. Lipponen continued to consult for 🇷🇺-state owned Nord Stream throughout all these events:

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2008 South Ossetia War
2009 Murder of Sergei Magnitsky
2014 Crimea annexation, invasion of Donbas, shoot-down of MH17
2018 Skripal murders
2022 Invasion of Ukraine

In March 2022, the contract between Lipponen-owned Cosmopolis and Nord Stream AG was dissolved. 6/7

This report referenced Tommi Nieminen’s (.@TommiHNieminen) amazing work, “Putkimiehet” ("Pipemen"): hs.fi/sunnuntai/art-…

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