According to a study commissioned by the Prime Minister's Office (VNK), Russia does not consider Finland an influential EU country. This reduces Russia's interest in focusing its strategic communications on Finland.
The report, called "Govorit Moscow - Moscow Speaks" was released on Monday morning. However, the preface is already dated in February, during the period before the spread of the coronavirus.
The study finds that "Russia’s strategic message has remained almost unchanged since President Vladimir Putin’s speech in Munich in 2007. The experience of being insulted and deceived plays a very central role in the Russian way of thinking. This is reflected in Russia’s strategic messaging with its very strong emphasis on sovereignty, integrity and above all, independent and free decision-making."
The report mentioned that Russia does not view Finland as a powerful EU Member State. Therefore, Finland is not an important European target of special interest in Russia’s strategic communications, it is simply regarded as a good neighbor.
According to the report, Finland has fallen into the category of "friendly country with no problems" in Russia's strategic thinking. Finland is a good neighbor that is actively contacted, but its influence is clearly more limited than in Soviet times.
The conclusions of the study are: “On a more general level, it can be said that Finland arouses less passion in Russia and Russian strategic communications than one might infer from the way the Finnish media view Russia.”
That is why Finland must constantly work hard to be heard and understood in Moscow, the authors point out. At the heart of relations is presidential meetings. The report gives weight to President Sauli Niinistö, who gradually took on an increasing role in foreign policy leadership after the conquest of Crimea.
Recommendations
The authors of the report list seven recommendations for the development of strategic communication between Russia, the EU and Finland.
Finland should strengthen relations with the St. Petersburg region and increase dialogue with Russia. The teaching of the Russian language and Russian culture in Finland should be supported and at the same time the school teaching of history and source criticism should be strengthened. In this way, Finns would learn both to better understand Russia and to identify attempts to influence themselves.
The Principal Investigator of the study was Rear Admiral (ret.) Georgij Alafuzoff and its other authors are Doctor of Social Sciences Anders Blom, Master of Social Sciences Mihail Kurvinen, Professor Vilma Luoma-aho, Brigadier General (ret.) Juha Pyykönen and Professor Katerina Tsetsura.
The project consortium was made up of Eurofacts Oy, the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, the University of Jyväskylä and Security Analysis Oy.
