A warning from a Finn on Vladimir Putin

The Finnish border with Russia runs over 800 miles; the Finns have skin in this game.

In April 2023, Finland became the 31st member of North Atlantic Treaty Organization, aligning itself with the United States, ending generations of Finnish military neutrality between the West and Russia.

The Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 provoked the move. The Finnish capital of Helsinki is just 200 miles from St. Petersburg. With under six million people, Finland would have little chance of stopping Russian aggression alone.

The threat isn’t idle. Russia has invaded Finland before, in November 1939. That attack can’t be excused as part of Russia’s defense against Nazi Germany. At the time, the Nazis and Stalin were allies dividing Eastern Europe.

The Finns know the Russians. And whatever you think about Ukraine’s corruption and oligarchs, Finland is a modern, free democracy. It hopes to stay that way.

So when this email about Donald Trump’s embrace of Vladimir Putin arrived unsolicited from a Finnish reader¹, I thought it was worth sharing, in full and unedited. A lot of good people are very worried.

—

(Don’t shoot the messenger - subscribe to him!)

—

Hi Alex,

Domestically, President Trump may be doing exactly what he was voted to accomplish. I have no take on it, naturally, not being an American. But internationally, is he singlehandedly rewriting the US foreign policy?

I used to consider the US our (and Europe's, and NATO’s and Canada's) friend, and Russia our common foe. Now it seems both are our foes. The narrative seems to tell that Trump and Putin have already divided the world into spheres of interest, and well, Eastern if not all of Europe is soon under another Warsaw Pact...

Having enjoyed your writing and political backdrop views over many years, both inside book covers and in other media, what is your take on all this? And do you and the American people believe Russia is as of this month no longer your enemy?

Has Trump simply decided Putin will offer him a better deal than Ukraine and to hell with the rest? Or is he simply being deceived? Does he buy Putin's lines (read: lies) because he admires the man so much? Or does Putin have Trump so deeply in his pocket that he does whatever he is told to do?

Or is it the exact opposite, and Trump is double- and triple-crossing Putin to ultimately push the Russians to step over a line and then be put firmly back in their place? Or have the two simply come to align on an anti-China stand, for Trump to have an ace up his sleeve against Xi and Putin trying to crawl out from underling position vs Xi?

I am not trying to offend any fans of Trump's politics, I am simply trying to make sense of the tectonic shift in who is an ally to whom and who considers whom a threat?

BR

Heikki

PS. My view: never even think of trusting a Russian politician. Full stop.

1. I have to admit I love that Unreported Truths is read so many places,