NATO membership prospect brings relief for border Finns

Martti Kailio, 73, a Finnish pensioner who lives in Hiivaniemi, facing the Russian border on the opposite side of a lake, is troubled by the conflict in Ukraine.

“It makes me so angry that I would be amongst the first volunteers to go out there with a loaded gun, even though I’m not young enough to be a soldier anymore,” he says.

For many Finns living on the eastern border, the prospect of their country applying to join NATO has been greeted with relief.

“We should have joined earlier. No point in dragging it out anymore”, Kailio says.

Finland, which shares a 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) border with Russia, has historically avoided military ties.

However, after its powerful eastern neighbour invaded Ukraine in February, political and public sentiment in Finland shifted radically in favour of membership, with the president and prime minister urging for the country to join NATO “immediately.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought back unpleasant memories for several Finns of the 1939 Winter War when Red Army troops invaded Finland.

The little Finnish army, like the Ukrainian army, put up a valiant fight and inflicted tremendous losses on the Soviets.

Despite this, Finland was forced to hand over significant swaths of land to the Soviet Union.

– ‘A necessity’ –

Veli-Matti Rantala, 72, whose farmhouse is just a short walk from the Russian border in Suokumaa, holds a rusty army helmet and tells stories of the battles that took place in the surrounding forests.

“I’m not too worried about the situation anymore, now that we’re joining the Western community, help is coming,” he says. To him, Finland joining the alliance is a “necessity”.

Teacher Jaana Rikkinen, 59, grew up hearing Russian border guards on the other side of the lake in Vainikkala, just a few hundred metres from the Russian border.

Rikkinen, who lost two uncles in the war, is also “relieved” that Finland is now a member of NATO, despite her previous reservations.

She remembers continuous illegal border crossings near her home long after the war.

“It always happened at night. First, you heard the hounds, and then the gunfire,” Rikkinen says, adding that she hoped she only ever heard warning shots.

In 2001, a Russian army deserter crossed the border and broke into a house next door before killing himself after an exchange of fire with police.

Rikkinen fears that if the situation in Russia deteriorates, there might be more people trying to cross the border.

– Trust gone –
Despite the area’s history, the residents have always had plenty to do with those on the other side of the frontier.

“While Russia has always been feared — throughout the ages — in these parts, we have had an everyday interaction with Russians,” Rantala says.

He says Finns living on the border are very familiar with Russia and many have friends there.

Before the war, Rikkinen used to go for weekly shopping across the border and weekend trips to Saint Petersburg and had nothing “negative to say” about Russians.

But that “trust towards our neighbours is now gone”.

“The border is shut, and if we went there, we don’t know what could happen,” she says.

With the railway station and border guard employing the majority of the villagers in Vainikkala, Rikkinen is concerned that the border settlements will suffer as a result of the war.

“I just hope the war will end,” she says.