Russian-friendly association hosts ambassador at Finnish summer gathering

More than 100 members of the Russian-friendly Naapuriseura association gathered in Karkkila, Finland, where Russian Ambassador Pavel Kuznetsov presented the group’s honorary chair, Mauno Saari, with a medal awarded by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Yle reports.

The ceremony took place on August 29 at Restaurant Rinne during the association’s summer celebration. Saari, 79, said he regarded the medal as recognition for the entire organisation.

Saari is a former journalist and author who has served as editor-in-chief of Iltalehti and Suomen Kuvalehti. He founded Naapuriseura in 2022 with former MP Mikko Elo of the Social Democratic Party.

The association’s most visible activity is its online publication, Naapuriseuran Sanomat. It describes itself as a politically independent ideological association that seeks to promote good relations between people and states, particularly Finland and Russia.

Chairman Jauri Varvikko, 57, said Naapuriseura has more than 1,000 members, including about 300 active members. He estimated that around 150 people attended the event.

Public accounts have suggested that the association emerged after the Finland-Russia Society split following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Some members wanted to condemn the invasion while others did not. Saari rejected that explanation, saying his motivation stemmed from Russia’s occupation of Crimea in 2014.

Saari said that journalism had ended at that time and that the media had become “a mouthpiece for Western propaganda”. He said he opposed war but did not want to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In a speech at the event, Saari said the roots of the war lay in the 1990s, when what he called the West’s long betrayal began. He referred to an alleged promise that NATO would not expand to Russia’s borders.

Jussi Lassila, a Russia researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, said the association was repeating Kremlin propaganda. He said the claim about a promise that NATO would not expand “not one inch” had been taken out of context.

According to Lassila, the phrase was used informally and orally in discussions with the Soviet Union, not Russia, during negotiations over German reunification. The issue at the time was whether NATO troops and nuclear weapons could be stationed in East Germany.

Lassila said Naapuriseura was generally viewed as a Russian-friendly but relatively harmless organisation that had not broken free from Cold War-era thinking about Finland’s relationship with the Soviet Union and neutrality.

He described the association as a gathering place for mainly retired supporters of neutrality who, in his view, could not see Russia as a declining great power that had lost the influence it held during the Soviet era.

The event had the atmosphere of a Finnish confirmation celebration, with older guests in shirts and dresses eating Russian-style meat, flatbread and pickles. Members of the anti-EU Freedom Alliance, Sakari Linden and Olli Kotro, also attended, as did Jussi Särkelä, who was removed from the Social Democratic Party’s candidate list in the latest municipal elections because of his pro-Russian views.

Among the guests were a retired woman from the Helsinki region and a lawyer from Satakunta. They said they had met that day. Yle did not disclose their names because they feared reactions from people close to them.