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Posted on August 3, 2009 - by

Finland Pushes Putin’s Buttons

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Finland Pushes Putin’s Buttons

As any family feud, this story has many ins and outs. Paavo Salonen from Finland married Rimma from Russia, they had a son – Anton – and they got divorced. Rimma’s older son from first marriage Nikita, who is now 19, lived with his stepfather Paavo in Finland. Rimma was living with her younger son in St. Petersburg. Paavo Salonen – old enough to be his ex-wife’s grandfather – demanded that Rimma relinquishes custody of Anton and delivers the boy to Finland. Paavo filed a law suit against Rimma in Finland, accusing his ex-wife of bringing their son to Russia without his consent.

Still unable to get his ex to cooperate, Paavo came to Russia earlier this year resolved to kidnap his own son. The man managed to convince Finland’s consul in St. Petersburg, Simo Pietiläinen, to help him with the kidnapping. They boy was snatched from his home, packed into the trunk of Mr. Pietiläinen’s car and taken across the Russian border to Finland. Because of its diplomatic license plates, the car was never searched at the border.

The story quickly became public and precipitated a major diplomatic row between Russia and Finland. Russia’s Foreign Ministry declared Simo Pietiläinen persona non grata and criminal charges were filed against Paavo Salonen. The level of publicity this incident gained in the Russian media forced Putin to weigh in on the issue and accuse Finland of sabotaging years of good relations with Russia. As the story was beginning to disappear from the headlines, a new twist emerged yesterday.

The boy’s mother was still hopeful she could bring Anton back to Russia. Rimma was contacted by Anssi Koykkaan, a criminal police commissioner from Finland. He promised Rimma to arrange a meeting with her son and told her not to worry about her ex-husband’s lawsuit. Mr. Koykkaan told Rimma to come to Tallinn, Estonia, and to contact the Finnish embassy. Desperate to see her son, Rimma chose to overlook the obvious signs of a trap and traveled to Estonia, where she stayed with her friend Olga.

The two women went to the embassy of Finland, where they got separated. The next day embassy representative came by Olga’s house to pick up her friend’s belongings, claiming Rimma decided to travel to Finland. Olga found the claim dubious and contacted Johan Bäckman – Rimma’s representative and a well-known Finnish publicist and human rights activist. Reports have surfaced shortly thereafter that Rimma was in fact detained by Estonian police, who assisted with her “unofficial extradition” to Finland. Estonian police denied involvement.

I happen to have a source in Siseministeerium (Estonia’s Ministry of the Interior), who told me that Rimma was detained at Finland’s embassy by a representative of Finnish police. She was taken to the port and, with assistance from Estonian police and customs agents, loaded on a ferry and taken to Helsinki, from where she was later transferred to a jail in Tampere. My source tells me that Rimma’s expedient departure was cleared with the government of Estonia and Siseministeerium through diplomatic channels on the same day the woman came to the country.

The repeating cases of Russian citizens being kidnapped by Finnish diplomats do not leave Russia’s Foreign Ministry much room to maneuver. The fallout from the April incident with the kidnapping of Anton Salonen was relatively limited. Russia’s response was proportionate and there was no diplomatic retaliation from Finland. The drama in the media would have eventually died out. But now, faced with the kidnapping of Anton’s mother – also by Finnish diplomats – Russia’s Foreign Ministry has to come up with a more convincing answer, which will likely cause Finland to retaliate along the diplomatic channels.

I find Finns to be ill-mannered, bad-smelling, and not too bright to boot. I think their country is not entirely real and still belongs to Russia. My personal feelings aside, however, Finland acted aggressively to protect the interests of its citizens, making Russia’s Foreign Ministry look rather inept. A stronger response from Russia should also be expected because the situation personally involves Putin, who in early June sharply criticized Finland’s ex-consul for his role in the kidnapping of Anton Salonen. This latest incident made Putin look like a fathead: a condition to which Russia’s Prime Minister is acutely allergic.

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 3rd, 2009 at 1:09 am and is filed under Featured, Former Colonies, Russia, Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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    August 4, 2009

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    Lars Kesoman said:

    What strikes me most after reading news articles and opinions from the both sides is the nationalistic anger this, to be frank quite small, incident rises.
    Not to mention that the news articles presented by both sides’ media seem to say almost opposite things be equally full of bs.
    People, both Russian and Finnish, that think this is their business somehow should not be so eager to judge people based on what their own tabloids write and instead look for the truth a bit further.

    I just feel it’s a shame if this causes ill will between the states since frankly there are more things connecting than dividing the aforementioned people.

    P.S. Though that last part you wrote kinda makes you stand off as arrogant and xenophobe so i don’t think you can really go beyond the tabloid believer state.

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    Venik Reply:
    August 5th, 2009 at 1:17 am

    It would appear that quite a bit of history is standing in the way of good relations between Russia and Finland. Since I am a “xenos” where I live, it is unlikely that I am also a xenophobe, so bear with me. My opinions are my own and it cannot be helped if I dislike Finns. Not all of then, mind you, but just those I’ve met.

    Opinions aside, it would seem clear that the government of Finland decided to get directly involved in what should have been a matter for a family court at best. When senior diplomats start kidnapping foreign citizens… I doubt any additional facts that managed to escape the tabloids would really make that big of a difference against the backdrop of a Finnish consul running the border with a child in the trunk of his car.

    Actually, this is a nice illustration of everything I think about the Finns. Well, maybe except for the part about the smell…

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    Lars Kesoman Reply:
    August 5th, 2009 at 2:58 pm

    This is actually what I mean about the respective countries’ media feeding different information.

    Correct me if I’m wrong but I’ve understood that the Russian argument has been all along that the child was kidnapped from his mother while they were staying on Russian soil and his mother had already arranged him the nationality. Combined with claim that the kidnap was arranged or at least overlooked by the Finnish government.

    Whereas the Finnish media have mainly reported about the incident before, that his mother took him away without consent from his father and fled Finland. After which Russian court forbid him to leave with his child when he entered the country to reclaim him. Also it has been claimed that the consul acted on his own accord while “helping them return” or “helping the father kidnap the child”, however you want to say it.

    Now you say this should have been a family court matter but neither country has actually taken part in the Hague Child Abduction Treaty so it actually could not have been handled by court of the country of origin after they left.

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    Venik Reply:
    August 5th, 2009 at 3:25 pm

    I am not particularly interested in a comparative analysis of news reporting in Finland and Russia. I couldn’t care less about the little Anton, his hysterical mother, or the crazy old fart she had the misfortune of meeting.

    Finland crossed the line when its senior diplomatic envoy to Russia chose to break Russian law and escalate this family feud to the level of an international crisis.

    Just because neither country signed the Child Abduction Treaty, it does not excuse the consul’s actions. If I remember correctly, Russia and Finland do not have a non-aggression pact signed either. So what does that mean?

    Finns pride themselves on being factual and cool-headed. Don’t exaggerate, they say. The incident with the consul shows them in a very different light. The situation with the ex-consul might have been written off as one man’s decision has it not been for the recent entrapment perpetrated by Finnish police against the boy’s mother.

    Taken in concert, these acts by Finnish officials present deliberate contempt for Russian law and disregard for bilateral relations. If such a high-ranking Finnish diplomat – a man who should be at the forefront of improving relations with Russia – feels such deep contempt for Russia, then what can be said about the average Finns?



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    August 5, 2009

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    Lars Kesoman said:

    I’m not going to comment on the subject after this but before that there’s few things I’d like to point out.

    Even though you expressed your disinterest for the media’s, and especially Finnish media’s, effect on the matter I’d like to return to that. For had it not been for the articles nominating the consul in question as a hero of some sort the public opinion might have been less supportive for his part.

    That leads us to the thing you mentioned – the contempt for Russia. It has been argued by many academics that the media is giving a purposely anti-Russian message when it comes things like this. It will affect the popular opinion and explains pretty neatly how the issue was received. This all may seem like a universal contempt against Russia by Finnish people.

    All in all, what I’ve observed and have been trying to bring up is that there really doesn’t exist any real universal contempt there. Yes there are people
    that disrespect Russia and Russians, and quite a few of them actually, but the disrespect is not universal and I hope that though your relationship with Finns you’ve encountered has been obviously bad and you dislike them – I hope you do not think that all Finns disrespect Russia.

    Anyways you might not care less about all this but I’d like to sincerely thank you for your insight on the matter. It has really helped me to understand the Russian point of view to matters like this.

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    kvs Reply:
    August 17th, 2009 at 1:43 pm

    Anyone trying to make the Finnish side look good in this affair cannot be taken seriously. Both the child and mother were kidnapped by the Finnish state. This is state sponsored terrorism. In basically every western country the law assigns priority to the mother over the father. But here you have the complete opposite standard applied with grotesque abuse of power simply because the mother is Russian.

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    August 17, 2009

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    kvs said:

    I agree with you Venik that the Russian government and Putin look like idiots for tolerating this gross violation of human rights of Russian citizens. The least that Russia could do would be to introduce some heavy trade sanctions against Finland. In particular all lumber related trade should be halted. Expulsion of a few Finnish diplomats (regardless of any retaliation) would be a good idea too since clearly they are there for malicious purposes to start with.

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