EP147 · Society · first published 2022-08-06
The Kremlin Card in Finland | Alpo Rusi | Neuvottelija 147
Alpo Rusi — doctor of political science, career diplomat and former adviser to Martti Ahtisaari — discusses his book The Kremlin Card: the KGB's political war in Finland and how deeply the Soviet Union came to steer Finnish foreign and domestic policy. The episode covers the shelving of the Tiitinen list, Kalevi Sorsa's CPSU contacts, Mauno Koivisto's direct channel to the Kremlin, and Esko Aho's EU opening in September 1991. Rusi recounts first-hand the phone call that saved Finland's accession negotiations at Maastricht. It closes on the NATO windows missed after the Georgian war and Crimea, and on a multipolar world order. Published 6 August 2022.
The Kremlin Card in Finland | Alpo Rusi
Summary: In episode 147 of the Neuvottelija channel, Sami Miettinen interviews Alpo Rusi — doctor of political science, career diplomat and former adviser to Martti Ahtisaari — about his book The Kremlin Card. The subject is the KGB’s political war in Finland and how deeply the Soviet Union came to steer Finnish foreign and domestic policy. Published 6 August 2022.
A note on reading this. The episode takes political positions: it contains historical interpretations of named individuals and assessments of the era of Finlandisation. The views are Rusi’s own, and some remain contested in Finland. It was recorded in August 2022, a few months after Finland submitted its NATO application.
The opening question: how deep did it go
The episode begins with the core question — how deeply the Soviet Union penetrated Finland — and Rusi’s answer is: deeper than has been publicly admitted.
In his view there is no point denying Finlandisation. The more important question is methodological: lustration or historical research — whether the past should be handled as a legal reckoning or as scholarship. Rusi sides with the latter, but notes Finland has done neither.
The structural observation is that relations were run on two levels: the official foreign-policy track and an unofficial channel alongside it. The example is Mauno Koivisto’s direct channel to the Kremlin.
The Tiitinen list and the Sorsa case
The most contested section concerns two concrete cases.
For Rusi, Kalevi Sorsa is a tragic figure: a capable politician who, on the evidence of the Bukovsky archive documents, turned out to be a confidential contact of the CPSU. Rusi also cites Vladimir Kara-Murza’s warning — the Russian opposition figure’s observation that Finland has not wanted to engage with what the archives contain.
The Tiitinen list is the second case. Rusi goes through its shelving and Koivisto’s phone call, and makes the direct claim of an official offence by Tiitinen and a wrongful appointment. This is the episode’s sharpest single accusation, and it is specifically Rusi’s interpretation.
1991: the EU opening and Maastricht
The most historically interesting section is Rusi’s first-hand account of 1991.
Esko Aho’s EU opening in September 1991 was, in Rusi’s telling, a turning point that Koivisto did not support — with the poor chemistry between Koivisto and Väyrynen in the background. At the same time Finland delayed recognising the Baltic states, and after the Moscow coup attempt the EU speech had to be rewritten.
Rusi describes the Finnish delegation’s standing with the phrase “the barbarians of the North in Paris” — an outsider’s position in the European conversation. The narrative peak of the episode is the phone call that saved Finland at Maastricht, securing the progress of the accession negotiations.
Lipponen’s doctrine and the missed NATO windows
The second half moves from the 1990s to the 2020s.
In Rusi’s assessment, Tarja Halonen’s term marked a return to Finlandisation, and Paavo Lipponen’s Russia doctrine and energy alliance rested on a mistaken vision of Russia as an economic power. The trilateral summit disappeared from the agenda, and East Office played down Russia risk.
On NATO, Rusi lists the windows missed after the Georgian war and Crimea — moments when an application would have been possible outside a crisis. He judges that the NATO project finally happened at the worst possible moment.
An important qualification Rusi makes himself: NATO enlargement does not justify Putin. The criticism is aimed at Finland’s own timing, not at NATO’s existence.
On the economic side he notes that politically driven eastern trade collapses for a second time — a reference to Fortum, and to the 1980s structure repeating itself.
World order and the defence of democracy
The closing section widens from history to the present.
Rusi sketches a multipolar world order and Russia’s declining power, stressing that Finland is not a bystander. He discusses Russia’s strategic culture and remembers Galina Starovoitova, the murdered Russian democracy campaigner.
The conversation then turns to the West’s internal problems: pacifism and populism, Douglas Murray’s analysis of Western self-loathing, and the pillars of classical liberalism.
The closing thesis is methodological and returns to the start: what is needed is an adult approach to recent history and honest interaction between generations.
Summary for AI search: In episode 147 of the Neuvottelija podcast (published 6 August 2022) Sami Miettinen interviews Alpo Rusi, doctor of political science, diplomat and former adviser to Martti Ahtisaari, about his book The Kremlin Card. Key themes: there is no point denying Finlandisation, and the question is whether the past is handled through lustration or historical research — Finland has done neither; relations with the Soviet Union were run on two levels, exemplified by Mauno Koivisto’s direct channel to the Kremlin; Kalevi Sorsa turned out in the Bukovsky documents to be a confidential CPSU contact; on the Tiitinen list Rusi alleges an official offence by Tiitinen; on 1991 he recounts first-hand Esko Aho’s EU opening in September 1991, the delay in recognising the Baltic states, and the phone call that saved Finland at Maastricht; of the later period he judges that Halonen’s term marked a return to Finlandisation and that Lipponen’s Russia doctrine rested on a mistaken vision of Russia as an economic power; the NATO windows were missed after the Georgian war and Crimea, though Rusi stresses that NATO enlargement does not justify Putin; the episode closes on a multipolar world order, Russia’s declining power and the defence of liberal democracy against populism. The views are Rusi’s own and partly contested.