Recent months have seen much speculation about how Russian oligarch Gennady Timchenko came to acquire Finnish citizenship in 1999.
Helsingin Sanomat now reports that Timchenko's teenage daughter also received Finnish citizenship in 2000. A letter accompanying her citizenship application asked that the matter be rushed, according to HS. Though the immigration service's (Migri) predecessor at the time, called the Directorate of Immigration, initially said there was no reason to hurry the case, it granted the girl citizenship just one month later.
The paper notes that the directorate's former boss, Matti Saarelainen, was asked by Kai Paananen, Timchenko's business partner, to rush the family's citizenship applications.
A report published this week by the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service (Supo) said the agency had repeatedly asked Saarelainen to let them know if Timchenko applied for citizenship. Saarelainen, however, never flagged Supo, which now says it would have intervened in the matter had it been given the opportunity.
A fake famine
Moscow is stepping up anti-Finland propaganda in an attempt to negatively impact regular Russians' attitudes towards Finns, Russia expert Hanna Smith told Ilta-Sanomat.
She said that while this type of propaganda isn't new, it's noteworthy that Ukraine was the target of similar efforts for years.
"It was about building up an enemy," she explained.
Moscow wants to portray the west as weak, which is why Russian propaganda focused on last week’s partial retail strike, according to Smith. Some Russian sites claimed that Finns were hoarding bread in preparation of a major famine.
"It plants a seed that maybe things aren't that great in Finland either. This helps people forget their own daily struggles," Smith said, adding that Russian propaganda has to keep pace as western sanctions erode Russians' quality of life.
Stockpile mentality
Hufvudstadsbladet picks up on a New York Times piece by American historian Jared Diamond, suggesting that countries should learn to expect natural disasters, like last week's devastating earthquake in Turkey.
Diamond applauds Finland's prepper attitude, noting that shortages after the Winter War led the country to take stockpiling seriously.
"Many non-Finns, and many of my Los Angeles friends, consider Finns' and my outlook on life as an absurd vice, verging on paranoia. I consider our outlook as a healthy virtue that I call constructive paranoia," he said.