In memory of our Finnish soldiers’ brave and skillful resistance against Russian invaders in late 1939, I am delighted, as a current media member in our Defence Ministry, to post this notice on our official website: “On the proposal of the Government, the President of the Republic decided today that Finland will deliver two thousand five hundred assault rifles, one hundred fifty thousand cartridges for the attack rifles, one thousand five hundred single-shot anti-tank weapons and seventy thousand combat ration packages to Ukraine as material aid.”

We know we must help because we know Russia and Vladimir Putin. We also know Joseph Stalin who demanded some of our islands and a port. When we declined to damage our national pride and desire for neutrality, Stalin unleashed overconfident and ill-prepared troops we slaughtered amid our dark and windy forests and, moving fast on trains and skis, outflanked the giants and cut them up in the snow. The Russians, bloodied and humiliated, then marshaled overwhelming force that forced us to accept harsher terms the following March.

We fear a similar sequence may envelop Ukraine, but we shall lend all possible assistance. We don’t want Ukraine to fall. We don’t want the Baltic States to be the next target. We don’t want to be invaded again. And we don’t like Putin threatening to use nuclear weapons. No, we don’t like any of it.

Begging the forbearance of my government, I would, on an entirely personal note, like to suggest that Ukraine someday consider neutrality, a policy that has long helped cold and isolated Finland maintain independence from the Russian beast.

Finnish Government website

This is a series of stories about the Russo-Ukrainian War