This brief essay presents two ‘straws in the wind.’ The title above is the first. The second is: why does Helsinki have a new mayor with the very un-Finnish sounding family name of Sazonov?
I offer this material, because you will not find it anywhere in US and European mainstream media, and yet it all bears directly on where we may be heading: towards peace or global war?
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Russia’s ballistic missile attack yesterday, Palm Sunday, on the Ukrainian provincial capital of Sumy in the northeast of the country was the number one news item on this morning’s BBC News. They spoke about the 34 reported deaths, including women and children. They showed video images of severely damaged residential buildings and rubble-strewn streets. They told us about President Zelensky’s appeal to Donald Trump to come to Ukraine and see for himself the wanton destruction that Russia continues to inflict on his country even now when talks of a cease-fire are under way.
In short, Kiev is once again attempting a PR blitz in the West as it has done repeatedly since the start of the war.
For their part, the Russians have put out some very specific information about what were their objectives in the latest attack on Sumy and what they actually achieved. They tell us that they used two Iskander-M hypersonic missiles to obliterate the command staff of the Ukrainian army group called ‘Seversk’ which was holding a meeting at the time. They claim to have killed 60 soldiers and officers of the Ukrainian armed forces including a certain Colonel Yula.
Moreover, they point out that their missile strikes were successful in evading Ukraine’s local electronic warfare gear and Western supplied air defenses.
As regards possible civilian casualties, Moscow blames Kiev for continuing to violate international humanitarian law and placing military personnel and equipment in civilian properties.
But let us go beyond this narrow technical explanation of the attack. The proper context to understand what is going on is the following: Sumy was the planning and staging center for the Ukrainian invasion of Russia’s Kursk oblast just across the border last August. It is still active supporting what remains of Ukrainian troops inside Kursk and it is the staging point for new attacks on the neighboring Belgorod oblast of the RF. Moscow has set the objective of taking Sumy and the surrounding territory of Ukraine to create a buffer zone, thereby pushing back the Ukrainian armed forces beyond the range of their artillery and local drones.
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Finland has been putting out signals of a possible forthcoming relaxation of its hostile measures against Russia. Following his day of golf with Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago two weeks ago, their president unexpectedly told his nation and EU Member States that they should prepare for an eventual normalization of relations with Russia. There has also been talk now of Finland possibly reopening its border crossings with Russia which were closed more than a year ago.
Now today there comes the news that in the weekend’s municipal and local elections in Finland the nation’s capital has just voted in as mayor a certain Daniel Sazonov. There would be nothing surprising in the fact that this deputy mayor responsible for social issues and health since 2021 has been moved up to mayor. But there is the little detail of his very Russian family name and the fact that his parents moved to Finland from St Petersburg in the early 1990s.
Sazonov himself was born in Helsinki in 1993. However, given the almost racist nature of the Russophobia that has swept through Europe since the start of the Special Military Operation, it is certainly noteworthy that the Finnish electorate has overlooked his family heritage and installed him as mayor.
We speak about the Baltic States as the most viciously anti-Russian members of the EU. They alone chose to join Britain and France in the last gathering of the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ that UK Prime Minister called for the purpose of sabotaging the ongoing Trump peace initiative.
Finland, which might also be properly called a ‘Baltic state,’ given its geography, has no big Russian minority in its population dating from Soviet times. To be sure, in recent months we have seen and heard a lot from the Finnish revanchists who curse the Soviets for taking their land during the Finnish-Russian war that just preceded the outbreak of WWII and for the further territorial losses that followed the world war in compensation for Finland’s close cooperation with the Nazis siege of Leningrad. Yet in the same national elections this weekend, the ‘True Finns’ party, whom we may assume represent those diehards, polled only 7.8% of the vote, 3.3% less than in the last national elections.
Conclusion: there is some shred of sanity in the Finnish electorate and maybe even some decency.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025
Warum hat Russland Sumy angegriffen und mit welchen Ergebnissen?
Dieser kurze Aufsatz präsentiert zwei „Strohhalme im Wind“. Der Titel oben ist der erste. Der zweite lautet: Warum hat Helsinki einen neuen Bürgermeister mit dem sehr un-finnisch klingenden Familiennamen Sazonov?
Ich biete dieses Material an, weil Sie es nirgendwo in den Mainstream-Medien der USA und Europas finden werden, und doch hat es alles einen direkten Einfluss darauf, wohin wir uns bewegen könnten: in Richtung Frieden oder globaler Krieg?
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Der gestrige Angriff Russlands mit ballistischen Raketen auf die ukrainische Provinzhauptstadt Sumy im Nordosten des Landes war heute Morgen das Topthema in den BBC News. Sie berichteten über die 34 gemeldeten Todesfälle, darunter Frauen und Kinder. Sie zeigten Videobilder von schwer beschädigten Wohngebäuden und von Trümmern übersäten Straßen. Sie berichteten uns von Präsident Zelenskys Appell an Donald Trump, in die Ukraine zu kommen und sich selbst ein Bild von der mutwilligen Zerstörung zu machen, die Russland seinem Land auch jetzt noch zufügt, wo Gespräche über einen Waffenstillstand im Gange sind.
Kurz gesagt, Kiew versucht erneut, im Westen einen PR-Coup zu landen, wie es seit Beginn des Krieges wiederholt der Fall war.
Die Russen haben ihrerseits einige sehr spezifische Informationen darüber veröffentlicht, was ihre Ziele beim jüngsten Angriff auf Sumy waren und was sie tatsächlich erreicht haben. Sie berichten, dass sie zwei Iskander-M-Hyperschallraketen eingesetzt haben, um den Kommandostab der ukrainischen Heeresgruppe „Seversk“, der zu diesem Zeitpunkt eine Sitzung abhielt, auszulöschen. Sie behaupten, 60 Soldaten und Offiziere der ukrainischen Streitkräfte getötet zu haben, darunter einen gewissen Oberst Yula.
Außerdem weisen sie darauf hin, dass es ihnen mit ihren Raketenangriffen gelungen sei, die lokale elektronische Kriegsführung der Ukraine und die von westlichen Ländern gelieferten Luftverteidigungssysteme zu umgehen.
Was mögliche Opfer unter der Zivilbevölkerung betrifft, so beschuldigt Moskau Kiew, weiterhin gegen das humanitäre Völkerrecht zu verstoßen und Militärpersonal und -ausrüstung in zivilen Gebäuden unterzubringen.
Aber lassen Sie uns über diese eng gefasste technische Erklärung des Angriffs hinausgehen. Der richtige Kontext, um zu verstehen, was vor sich geht, ist der folgende: Sumy war im vergangenen August das Planungs- und Einsatzzentrum für die ukrainische Invasion in der russischen Oblast Kursk direkt hinter der Grenze. Die Stadt unterstützt nach wie vor die verbliebenen ukrainischen Truppen in Kursk und ist Ausgangspunkt für neue Angriffe auf das benachbarte Oblast Belgorod der Russischen Föderation. Moskau hat sich zum Ziel gesetzt, Sumy und das umliegende Gebiet der Ukraine einzunehmen, um eine Pufferzone zu schaffen und so die ukrainischen Streitkräfte außerhalb der Reichweite ihrer Artillerie und lokalen Drohnen zurückzudrängen.
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Finnland hat Signale für eine mögliche bevorstehende Lockerung seiner feindlichen Maßnahmen gegen Russland ausgesendet. Nach seinem Golftag mit Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago vor zwei Wochen erklärte der US-Präsident unerwartet seiner Nation und den EU-Mitgliedstaaten, dass sie sich auf eine mögliche Normalisierung der Beziehungen zu Russland vorbereiten sollten. Es wurde auch darüber gesprochen, dass Finnland möglicherweise seine vor mehr als einem Jahr geschlossenen Grenzübergänge zu Russland wieder öffnen könnte.
Heute nun kommt die Nachricht, dass bei den Kommunal- und Lokalwahlen am Wochenende in Finnland die Hauptstadt des Landes gerade einen gewissen Daniel Sazonov zum Bürgermeister gewählt hat. Es wäre nicht überraschend, wenn dieser stellvertretende Bürgermeister, der seit 2021 für soziale Fragen und Gesundheit zuständig ist, zum Bürgermeister aufsteigen würde. Aber es gibt da dieses kleine Detail seines sehr russischen Familiennamens und die Tatsache, dass seine Eltern Anfang der 1990er Jahre von St. Petersburg nach Finnland gezogen sind.
Sazonov selbst wurde 1993 in Helsinki geboren. Angesichts der fast rassistischen Natur der Russophobie, die seit Beginn der militärischen Spezialoperation durch Europa fegt, ist es jedoch sicherlich bemerkenswert, dass die finnischen Wähler sein familiäres Erbe übersehen und ihn zum Bürgermeister gewählt haben.
Wir sprechen von den baltischen Staaten als den bösartigsten antirussischen Mitgliedern der EU. Sie allein haben sich dafür entschieden, sich Großbritannien und Frankreich bei der letzten Versammlung der „Koalition der Willigen“ anzuschließen, die der britische Premierminister einberufen hat, um die laufende Friedensinitiative von Trump zu sabotieren.
Finnland, das aufgrund seiner geografischen Lage auch als „baltischer Staat“ bezeichnet werden könnte, hat keine große russische Minderheit in seiner Bevölkerung, die aus der Sowjetzeit stammt. In den letzten Monaten haben wir allerdings viel von finnischen Revanchisten gehört und gesehen, die die Sowjets verfluchen, weil sie ihnen während des finnisch-russischen Krieges, der dem Ausbruch des Zweiten Weltkriegs unmittelbar vorausging, ihr Land weggenommen haben und weil sie nach dem Weltkrieg weitere Gebietsverluste hinnehmen mussten, als Ausgleich für die enge Zusammenarbeit Finnlands mit den Nazis bei der Belagerung Leningrads. Bei den gleichen landesweiten Wahlen an diesem Wochenende erhielt die Partei „Wahre Finnen“, die vermutlich diese Ewiggestrigen vertritt, nur 7,8 % der Stimmen, 3,3 % weniger als bei den letzten landesweiten Wahlen.
Schlussfolgerung: Die finnischen Wähler sind nicht völlig verrückt und vielleicht sogar noch anständig.
Gilbert Doctorow 
As a regular reader and avid follower of your work Professor, I want to first of all thank you for your level headed analysis and reporting of Russian and other matters.
But when it comes to your latest commentary on Finland, I must bring down the careful optimism you had, especially regarding to your commentary on the Finnish electorate.
As a Finnish man myself I know firsthand that the russophobia extends far beyond the True Finns party and that our revanchism and historical revisionism is equally prevalent among the political left, right and center.
Why, our previous nitwit of a prime minister, Sanna Marin, when she was not partying with local trash celebrities during working weeks, eating luxurious breakfasts paid with taxpayer money or selling our national property to the Germans from rock-concerts by texting the agreement quickly from her cellphone between rounds of beer, regularly showed her revisionist views whenever an opportunity allowed her. Not only did she consistently mistake who attacked who during the beginning of the Continuation war, she also regularly said that Ukraine must win its war against Russia like Finland won in the second world war. Now even though Ukraine’s fate could very well be the same as my country’s at the end of all this, it is clear that she is completely uneducated and uncultured in historical matters. And this is a person who was and is widely worshipped in Finland even after she abandoned her voters after our last parliamentary elections in 2023. On that occasion she got selected to the parliament again by a huge margin but abandoned her post after she got more lucrative post in nothing less than Tony Blair’s institute. As a media pet in Finland no chastisement befell on her at all.
Our President Stubb has behind him a failed career as a prime minister in 2014 and a scandalously farcical career as a financial minister in 2015. He is known as an academic mediocrity, relentless American apologist and a phenomenal political chameleon and his statements on history and relations with Russia are on the same level as Sanna Marin’s. He is a great supporter of the American military mission in Finland and telling from his actions and stance as a staunch defender of the so called “rules based order” and western hegemony it is quite clear that he does not see Finnish presidency as the culmination of his career but is rather looking towards a prestigious globalist post.
Even though the True Finns party no doubt contains the most vocal russophobes and the vilest of racists from our political cadre within our current government they are a novice political party and completely on the leash of the National Coalition party – the Party of the current prime minister Petteri Orpo and the President Alexander Stubb. For the longest time the political novices of nationalist populist True Finns party have been doing exactly the kind of policies that the National Coalition has made them to do all the while carrying the scorn and blame of the leftist opposition and globalist dominated mainstream media in Finland. Now after yesterday’s regional- and municipality elections their popularity has collapsed while the National Coalition has only gotten a dent to their popularity.
In the eyes of regular people the True Finns party is in fact a pariah political party and for the National coalition party a first class scapegoat. In an absurd way, and also as a show that they are not at all the greatest russophobes, all other political parties have actually blamed them of russophilia and portray them together with the mainstream media as a party that agrees the most with viewpoints of Vladimir Putin. This is of course utter rubbish but in Finland news are not place of honest reporting any longer but rather a source of current deepstate narrative. In fact the support for the war and the Neonazis of Ukraine is the strongest, even if not the brashest and most racist, among the Greens, the Leftist party and the National coalition together with the ever relentless Swedish party of Finland. Why is this? Because these parties have their voters and politicians from urban areas, especially around the capital city of Helsinki where the actual cost of our disastrous Russian policies is not seen or felt. In northern, middle and especially eastern provinces and smaller cities where industries and whole villages are dying and people are not getting healthcare or social benefits anymore the realization of the truth about the Ukrainian war is slowly emerging.
Even then this emergence is not showing itself by more vocal support for Russia or even in the voting polls. This is because everyone knows that their social life and indeed even work careers can end if they openly speak for Russia in Finland. The multitude of educators, politicians and researchers that have been laid of, ostracized and publicly humiliated for being even moderate on the Russians have created an atmosphere where people are afraid to talk their mind in public. It is also very unlikely that these ordinary people would vote for any party in the elections because none is offering them the sanity that could save them from their current situation. We must bear in mind that in these past elections that we finished yesterday we have had a historically low voting percentage and historically high number of protest votes not to mention the amount of disqualified votes.
When it comes to Mr. Sazonov I cannot say for sure, but it is quite unlikely that his new position is a sign of thawing relations between Finland Russia. It is more likely that his new job is a result of very thorough political lobbying by the business elite that works behind the National Coalition party that he is a member of. It is, after all how mediocrities from that party have always been risen to leading positions for example the likes of mr. Stubb and mr. Orpo. In the case of these two men we can clearly see that not only are they lacking critically in their academic achivements when it comes to their own political positions but are also utterly uncultured regarding the history and the political realities between Russia and Finland. When this business elite in its lobbying decides to elevate Sazonov to new position it is more likely that if his Russian ancestry is brought up anywhere he will be sold to the people as a “Western-minded Russian” something akin to the western perception of the likes of Alexei Navalnyi, who as we know was a less than ideal person to hold any governmental position himself.
Overall things are not looking good for Finland. Our military has been sold out unconstitutionally to NATO and to the United States in two separate agreements both of them against our own national interest. Our media is controlled by globalists that have the political left in their camp and our business elite penetrates deep into the government regardless of the ruling party and whatever is left for ruling will be dictated to us from the Brussels. There is simply no room for any establishment that could or would actually work for the national interests of Finland in the current political environment and thus everything that happens is to the benefit of our nouveau aristocracy of political, business and media elites backed by European union and now separately by Washington.
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