Finland tightens policy towards Russian espionage

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Finland has quietly changed its policy toward diplomats known to be spies and toward other professionals of illegal intelligence. Once the first term in the embassy is over, they are not admitted into the country again.
      This is how the Finnish Security Police (SUPO) attempts to prevent intelligence officers from getting themselves contacts in high positions.
      As a result of the changed policy, around 15 spies have not returned to Finland again.
     
During the Cold War (from 1945 to 1991), it was typical that an operative belonging to the Soviet intelligence agency KGB would first establish relations with rising young talents. Once their careers progressed, the spy returned to Finland repeatedly in the course of several decades in order to maintain contacts with them.
      This was the course of action that for example the former KGB General Viktor Vladimirov pursued. In this way Vladimirov eventually managed to establish good relations at least with two Finnish presidents.
     
Finland changed its policy at the beginning of the 1990s, when the Soviet Union collapsed. By that time, all other western countries had already introduced the new policy.
      The known intelligence officers are simply not granted a visa any longer. Military officers - employed as military or naval attachés - are an exception. They are allowed to return, but only if they have been assigned to a higher position.
      This change of policy has disturbed particularly the illegal intelligence-gathering activities of Russia. The spies have had to settle for middle-level civil servants and other contacts.
     
Nevertheless, the number of Russian covert staff in Finland has increased again, being now as high as it was during the Cold War.
      Even other countries' intelligence agencies are currently better represented in Helsinki than ever before.
     
According to the information gathered by Helsingin Sanomat, about 50 trained spies are acting within the cofines of Ring Road III in the Greater Helsinki area. Some 30 of them are working on behalf of Russia. The remaining 20 are intelligence officers of China, the USA, five different western countries, and of some former East European countries.
      About 80 to 90 per cent of all spies are diplomats. The others work as researchers, journalists, scholarship holders, businessmen, and students. The Russians' interest in Finland is shown by the fact that the Russian Embassy in Tehtaankatu employs almost as many diplomats as the embassies of the USA, China and Germany put together.
     
     
We shall be returning to this subject in greater depth in a weekly feature article on Tuiesday.


Links:
  The Finnish Security Police

Helsingin Sanomat