Finland is to Russia like Cuba to USA; unfinished business.

Finland is to Russia like Cuba to USA; unfinished business. (Pobeda 9.5.2020 - 75th Anniversary)

Russian Security Service FSB has recently released the classified documents of the Finnish interment camps for Sovjet Karelian civilians (labelled by FSB as concentration camps) during the Great Russian Partioric War 1941-1944.  Finnish army occupied Eastern Karelia for three years, where population was mixed Karelians, Russians, Ukrainians etc. due to forced internal migration ordered by Stalins regime. Those files were handed out to the National Archive of the Republic of Karelia (former known as Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic) for storage.
The Investigative Committee of Russian Federation has started official investigations on the claimed Finnish genocide on slavic people in Eastern Karelia  https://sledcom.ru/news/item/1456550/ . The Committee operates directly under President Putin.

Usually this kind of actions surface like submarines during the crisis in Kreml and we can only guess what kind of actions will follow, usually against opposition in Russia. Now, this can potentially be something bigger, since the ”best resources of motherland” are deployed. The 75th anniversary of the end of WWII in Europe is one momentum to open up this case again.  The nation needs enemies for unification.

Finland has repeatedly, over the decades, denied any ethnic cleansing to have happened in camps. The known fact is that the death toll in Finnish camps was far smaller than in Soviet ones.
Unlike in Russia / Soviet Union, in Finland the war archives have been open to research for a long time and even delicate issues have been openly discussed. War archive is open or academic research, documents in  National Archive are open for all, including foreign citizens!
On the 4th of May the official Finland invited (again) the Russian research group to visit the National Archives in Helsinki. Those specific war archives have been open since right after the end of war between CCCP and Finland in 1944.

”Any action based on criminal sentiment based on superiority on one race over the other and misanthropy shall not be left without punishment, not even after decades.”, says the Committee in its communiqué.

According to the head of the Committee, Mr. Aleksandr Bastrykin, ”a formal judicial assessment will be made on Finnish occupiers and their collaborators”. 

In my youth in 1960s-70s the Soviet threat, political pressure and direct influence to Finnish politics was real and present. I thought, we do not need to live that dark era again. How wrong I was! 

I wonder what kind of punishment (revenge) will we experience, when the Russian Truth Commission will publish its verdict? Anyhow, we better be prepared for an era of cold relationship with our eastern neighbour. The cold war of Northwest Europe is potentially evolving. Hopefully I am wrong.

Timing for this Kreml´s action is good. Pandemic and focus to tackle it  in global politics gives to the official Russia the needed shadow to do its job. It will be a matter of days, when the Finnish intellectual pro-soviets wake up again to support the case, usually in Russian media. Yes, we do have them quite a few in academic circles. We call them ”the docents on duty” or ”docent duty officers”.

There are few things that Soviet/Russian leaders have never learned since 1930s. 

1. Small army, based on national service, cannot afford to have secrets. Not even during the war. 
2. In Finland the myth of ”an unknown soldier” has very little meaning. All the soldiers killed in action have been brought back to their home cemetries and MIAs (missing in actions) are still been searched in Karelia (when the Russia gives the permit) and remains found (yes, still after 80 years) are brought back to Finland for honourable funeral service! Even war history enthusiasts from St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast have been actively particiated this exercise for decades.
   Against these actions the Russian ”new investigation” sounds weird and overdue.
3. Finland is probably the most homogenous country, land of Finns. Regardless of the political ideology they have a strong belonging to the homeland.
4. Right after the civil war (the bloodiest in Europe during last century) both sides of the battle lines participated the general election, and the socialists became the biggest group in the Parliament. What a cement to rebuild the nation from ruins! Look what happened in Soviet Union and to the old white tsarist parties!
5. In modern Finland we do have more parties than one can count. Small groups of from left to right including extreme communists (ca. 7000 registered) and neo-nazis (few hundred). However, the country and big majority is united and the old school agitation and propaganda does not work. Thus to have influence in inner politics is extremely difficult. Especially, when you dig old graves and open the cabinets that have already been opened in Finland for a long time. 
6. And finally, Russians are predominantly Nordic nation. The dna mapping has made it a proven thruth for decades ago. I.e. Russians tactical and political pressure can be considered as oppression on its own ethnic group!

However, every generation in Finland should learn the same lesson: Kreml´s policy is to keep its neighbours awake and alerted.

The history is written by the victors - sooner or later.