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Minna Ålander 🌻

@minna_alander

May 14

Since many people know nothing about Finland, jump on click bait headlines and retweet without checking facts, here a short overview of the things Russia has threatened Finland with so far & what their consequences are/would be:

1. Cutting electricity exports as of today

No problem, thanks to a new nuclear power plant + wind power Finland will soon be self-sufficient and even a net exporter. Finland used to import ~10% from Russia. Sweden & the Baltics can compensate for any short-term shortages.

2. Cutting gas deliveries (will prob happen this month)

A bit annoying because some industries need gas but on the whole no problem because gas is only ~5% of Finland’s energy mix. Finland already works with Estonia on the purchase of a LNG terminal ship.

Read 8 tweets

Minna Ålander 🌻

@minna_alander

May 13

“You know, Emmanuel, maybe we could do a group call with Vladimir next time. Do you think he uses Zoom ?”

Quite a big contrast to this.

Btw the filters used on these pictures make them look like stills from a film called “Last Spring in Kyiv” or something

Movie geek trivia: parts of the film were shot in Berlin because two main actors refused to travel to the set in Kyiv.

Read 4 tweets

Minna Ålander 🌻

@minna_alander

May 13

@adleande

Well said @adleande in @POLITICOEurope. That’s exactly the effect Russian threats have on the Finns: they just boost the support for NATO membership.

The Kremlin’s statement was very much along the expected lines & it was actually surprising that no incidents happened yesterday.

Finns when they hear yet another threat from the Kremlin:

Finns when there’s not even a cyber attack from Russia on the day their state leadership announce Finland should apply to NATO asap:

Read 4 tweets

Minna Ålander 🌻

@minna_alander

May 12

Some insights from Finnish analyses on the 🇫🇮 NATO process:

Feb 24 marked a “to be or not to be” (NATO member) moment, the hitherto non-committal closest possible cooperation became inadequate under the changed circumstances 1/6

PM Marin going from “unlikely that 🇫🇮 will seek NATO membership during my term of office” in January to “we should apply asap” today is indicative of the pragmatic approach to security policy: the best alternative for national security is always priority, not ideology. 2/6

For Sweden it’s more of an identity crisis - neutrality has been a cornerstone of 🇸🇪’s foreign policy identity for over 200 years. But 🇸🇪 also identifies strongly with the Nordic community, which makes it impossible to stay outside of NATO as the only Nordic country. 3/6

Read 6 tweets

Minna Ålander 🌻

@minna_alander

Apr 16

I personally totally understand how big #Zeitenwende is for Germans. A lot of broken taboos to digest, i.e. huge increases in defence spending, delivering weapons to a conflict party (and even the Greens support it), Habeck making energy deals in Quatar…

However, many of these things are only big domestically.

Stepping up defence spending is basically just catching up with what Germany was supposed to do anyways as NATO member.

Ukraine is not just any conflict party.

Entirely relying on Russian energy was a mistake, yes.

Most Europeans outside of Germany don’t speak German and don’t understand the peculiar German type of pacifism that includes categorically ignoring security policy implications while also being one of the biggest arms exporters in the world.

Read 9 tweets

Minna Ålander 🌻

@minna_alander

Apr 14

What could/will be the implications of a Finnish and Swedish NATO membership ?

Some speculative thoughts from both a Finnish/Nordic and NATO perspective (1/10):

With a very heated debate and the skyrocketing support for joining NATO (from around 20% to almost 70% within 2 months), there are valid concerns in Finland that joining in such a haste might not be ideal as 🇫🇮 has not had time to prepare its own NATO policy. 2/10

However, 🇫🇮 & 🇸🇪 joining NATO will make Nordic defence cooperation (#NORDEFCO*) more straightforward when all Nordics are NATO members.

Finland will naturally closely coordinate its NATO policy with its Nordic partners. 3/10

Read 10 tweets

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