Juku-Kalle Raid ⟩ Finland as an itchy pimple on Russia's buttock

A demonstration against a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump in Helsinki in 2018. The photo is illustrative. Photo: JONATHAN NACKSTRAND

• A court in Russia has found Finland guilty of genocide in East Karelia in 1941-1944.
• «We Will Crush the White Finnish Serpent» is a genuine example of barks of hate vis-à-vis Finland.
• There's always some cunning plan behind Russians' idiotic acts.

Russians have pulled off yet another international absurdity, accusing Finland of committing genocide in Karelia. Let's use an old booklet as an aid to examine the Russians' vocabulary and the background of their hysteria, writes Juku-Kalle Raid, editor-in-chief of KesKus and member of the Riigikogu foreign affairs committee (Estonia 200).

The events of the Winter War still haunt Russia, and from time to time the painful memory of the beating surfaces like a stinking abscess or a furuncle on one's buttock. Yes, we know that in fact Russia won the Winter War – Finland had to make significant concessions, lost more than a tenth of its territory, tens of thousands of people were «freed» of their homes, and the fate of the Finns, Karelians, Ingrians and others who remained on the Russian side proved anything but sweet. As always with Russia – killings, deportations, persecution, etc.

But reality still speaks in favor of Finland when it comes to this war: the Russians were humiliated like cats peeing in the house, it is an immense shame when a sparsely populated micro-state can essentially choke the hell out of the global giant state.

A complete miscalculation by Russians

The war began when the Soviet Union attacked the Republic of Finland on November 30, 1939 without a declaration of war. The Winter War lasted 105 days and ended on March 13, 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty; the war became well known all over the world because it was the coldest winter of the century and the Russian side suffered huge losses.

The Soviet fools arrogantly believed, as always, that the attack would last perhaps a couple of weeks. Just like in Ukraine, where they were confident that they would be in Kyiv in five days' time, met by grateful Ukrainians handing them flowers, vodka, chocolate, washing machines and watches. And they will put their own people in power. Nothing of the kind!

The Winter War is like a nasty blister on the butt of Putin's Russia – it itches, and every now and then, the Russians scratch this scab open again, in quite a ridiculous manner.

In Finland, too, the Russians took a beating. Their losses were many times greater than those of the Finns. And most importantly, Finns emerged in the eyes of the world as a heroic people who dared, and wanted, to fight for their freedom, even though they were minuscule in size compared with the enemy.

Today, Ukrainians have become a heroic people. The Russians were so shocked by all of this that the humiliating shock has not left them to this day.

Nikita Khrushchev once even managed to croak that a whole million Russians fell in the Winter War, while Marshal Mannerheim is more modest and speaks of some 200,000 fallen Russians against 28,000 dead among Finns.

So, the Winter War is like a nasty blister on the butt of Putin's Russia – it itches, and every now and then, the Russians scratch this scab open again, in quite a ridiculous manner.

They say Finns committed genocide

Last week, a court in Russia found Finland guilty of committing genocide in East Karelia between 1941 and 1944. This is nothing but an attempt to portray the Finns as enemies now. Why, then, did they close the border to Russians and push their way into that nasty NATO? Why don't they love the Russians yelling and staggering in the shopping malls of Helsinki? We, Russians, must be respected, loved, and feared.

Good. Let's take a moment to pick up a famous Soviet pamphlet that dates back to that very period, the time after the Winter War, to see what a vocabulary of powerless anger boils over there. Many, of course, have read the pamphlet, but it is worth remembering things of the past because history is often a good teacher, if we bother to learn.

I am, of course, referring to the legendary «work» titled «We Will Crush the White Finnish Serpent» (1941), whose beginning is even more legendary than the title itself:

Every Soviet person's heart was filled with unbridled fury when the outrageous provocation of the brazen Hitlerite punks, who dared to poke their filthy snouts into our Soviet garden, became known.

Alongside the mangy dogs of German Nazism, the mangy shepherd dog from the German yard, the hissing White Finnish serpent, also raised its head.

This cunning, treacherous serpent dared to crawl with war towards the impregnable fortresses of the Great Socialist State.

He has obviously not benefited from last year's teaching. Oh well, our brave Red Navy and Red Army men will repeat the lesson to him in a clearer form.

Who was it, then, the vile serpent that has driven out its tooth against the invincible motherland of the working people?

It is the savage gang of capitalists, estate owners, White Guard members and their agents – the Defense League, the Lapua and other butchers of the Finnish people.

Such frothy ranting hardly bears any resemblance to a grandiose vocabulary of victors, but rather is a series of deranged and frustrated barks of hate.

How tiny Finno-Ugric peoples wish to destroy gigantic Russia

Well, now the Russians have invented that the Finns are responsible for heinous war crimes and also for peace crimes. Prosecutor Dmitry Kharchenkov stated directly at the court spectacle in Petrozavodsk that the actions of the Finnish occupation administration could be described as genocide.

Sergey Verigin, a professor at the Petrozavodsk State University, came up with completely deranged talk about Finland's racist policies, which, according to him, envisaged the creation of a Great Finland where Finns would be a privileged class and everyone else would be second-class people who must be sent to concentration camps.

By the way, this narrative concerning a mythical Great Finland or a Giant Finno-Ugric state recurs every few years. Having traveled dozens and dozens of times to Russia with comrades from the Finno-Ugric institute, I have had to respond countless times to accusations, suspecting yet very foolish, suggesting that small nations of a few thousand or a few hundred native speakers are cunningly plotting to take over Mother Russia.

Thursday's court sitting was also webcast, and was really funny to watch indeed. It can be still found online.

Bouncy old women as witnesses

And Russia wouldn't be Russia if they hadn't mustered two relatively bouncy old women to appear in the courtroom, swearing in the name of everything that they remembered the horrible events of 80 years ago very well, when Finnish Nazis killed the brightest minds of the Russian and Karelian people. Judging by the looks, the old women could be aged 70-75 years at most.

But we all know about those Russian marvels and have heard of the 147-year-old collective farmer Mahmud Bagiroglu Eyvazov, who, according to the ultra-free Soviet press of the 1950s (not the lying mainstream media like we have in the West today!), was in full vigor and worked as a communist beekeeper, while his 120-year-old son served as a brigade leader, his 90-year-old grandson worked as an agronomist, and the still young, 70-year-old great-grandson held a job at the office of the collective farm.

Eyvazov was said to have died at 150, having been fully occupied with fulfilling socialist duties until his death. Today's Western technology is not capable of such feats!

Russians do commit many idiotic acts, but there is always some particularly cunning, disgusting, and especially subtle plan for skulduggery behind them.

Now, let's get back to the two old women who remember the atrocities committed by Finns as if they happened yesterday. «Yes, I am a witness to the events that took place in the concentration camps in Karelia from 1941 to 1944,» one of the women told the judge.

And the judge delivered a guilty verdict, promptly.

Of course, the Finns are to blame. The brochure «We Will Crush the White Finnish Serpent» clearly states: «Already in ancient times, the enemies of the Russian people turned Finland into a bridgehead for war against Russia, a filthy den from which gangs of robbers carried out savage raids on our land.»

Especially subtle plan for skulduggery

Esä Seppänen, trade adviser to Finnish President Urho Kekkonen in Russia (who worked in Moscow for 17 years), wrote in his memoirs of Russia in his book «The Anarchy of a Spacious Soul» (available in antiquarian bookshops for a few euros) that his friends sometimes ask him with compassion how it is possible to survive in that land of fools, Russia. Seppänen replies, «It's perfectly possible if you have the nerves of a cow and the vocabulary of a dock worker.»

«We Will Crush the White Finnish Serpent» heroically promises revenge on all enemies: «Dough dumplings are a delicious dish, just they are not made for the Nazis. The Soviet people managed to satisfy their greedy appetites with other sweets – the Stalinist salvos of our artillery. And this will continue to be the case with all enemies of our Motherland!»

There you have it. Let them salvos be, but the scab on Moscow's buttock just keeps itching and soliciting a scratch.

In reality, what we are talking about is quite simple: first, an enemy figure (or the image of a subordinate, a Nazi, a barbarian) was created of Ukrainians to incite the anger of righteous Russians against them. Anger is needed in war.

So, there is also a side to this genocidal crap that calls for vigilance. Russians do commit many idiotic acts, but there is always some particularly cunning, disgusting, and especially subtle plan for skulduggery behind them.