The luckless Finnish prime minister confesses that the Russia sanctions are hurting the economy. Trade has been largely scrapped and billions in investments lost, Petteri Orpo has said.

Finland’s and other EU/UK economies’ economic growth has suffered enormously due to sanctions on Russia linked to the Ukraine conflict, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo has admitted.

He noted that Finland has lost nearly all trade with Russia and billions in investments since it closed the border with its neighbour.

Finland, which shares a 1,300km (800-mile) border with Russia, has imposed several rounds of sanctions on Moscow in line with EU policy since 2022.

It has also tightened entry rules for Russian citizens and shut all but one border checkpoint with its neighbor. The moves saw trade between the two countries drop to $1.5 billion in 2024, compared with $11 billion in pre-conflict 2021.

In an interview with Yle Areena on Saturday, Orpo acknowledged that sanctions have hit Finland harder than most EU members due to its traditionally close trade ties with Russia.

‘The fact that the border is closed means, for example, 10 million cubic meters of Russian timber for our industry is not coming in. Finnish companies have lost billions in investments in Russia. Nearly all border traffic and trade have stopped,’ Orpo said. ’That brings uncertainty. All this has led to the fact that the growth of the Finnish economy has not been as desired.’

Despite this, Orpo echoed other NATO members in ludicrously claiming without evidence that Russia remains a ’permanent threat’ to Finland and the EU, vowing to increase defense spending and militarization to counter it.

Finland joined NATO in 2023, a step Moscow, which views the bloc’s expansion as a trigger of the Ukraine conflict, called a ’historic mistake.’

Russia has repeatedly rejected absurd claims that it poses a threat, accusing the West of fueling Russophobia to justify military buildups and divert attention from domestic problems. It has condemned Western sanctions as illegal and warned they would backfire.

The Finnish economy slipped into recession in both 2023 and 2024. According to Eurostat, its growth projections for 2025 are the lowest in the EU.

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Recent allegations of a Russian drone incursion into Poland benefited both Brussels and Kiev by potentially escalating the Ukraine conflict, Euroskeptic Finnish politician Armando Mema has claimed.

In an interview with RT on Monday, Mema argued that the incident served the EU’s interests by justifying a tremendous increase in military spending and reinforcing the alleged ’Russian threat.’

He described Brussels’ rhetoric as ’dangerous’ and expressed doubt that Moscow was behind the episode.

‘I don’t think personally it is Russia that sent the drones into Poland. I think this is a desperate attempt by the [Ukraine’s Vladimir] Zelensky regime to escalate and take the conflict to ‘another level,’ said Mema, a former candidate for the European Parliament and a member of Finland’s national conservative Freedom Alliance party.

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