When Putin invaded Ukraine, he sought to divide and weaken NATO. Nowhere has that strategy backfired more than in Finland.
For many Finns, Russia’s assault on Ukraine recalled the 1939 Soviet invasion of their homeland. Fear of another attack was enough to dismantle Helsinki’s seven-decade strategy of heavily armed nonalignment.
“Russia is much more unpredictable than we ever thought,” said Piritta Asunmaa, director general of political affairs at the Finnish foreign ministry and former ambassador to NATO. “It is much more willing to take risks and even take heavy losses, and it’s also capable of mobilizing 150,000 men on the border of a neighboring country without general mobilization,” said Ms. Asunmaa, who is also disquieted by Russia’s “loose talk of using weapons of mass destruction.
He pointed to the field outside his red wooden house, where an estimated 800 Soviets died during the weeklong Battle for Raate Road, a decisive moment in the four-month conflict that ended when local Finns eventually routed as many as 700,000 Soviet soldiers. There were so many bodies, Mr. Matero said, they had to be removed with a snowplow. “The battle for Raate Road is our pride,” he said. “But it was also a tragedy.
During the Battle for Raate Road, the Finns cut Soviet supply lines, much as today’s Ukrainians have done. As the Soviets, who were mostly Ukrainians, struggled with the cold and harsh terrain, the Finns wore them down. By the time the Red Army retreated, 25,000 Finns had died in total during the war, and at least five times as many Soviets.
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