Russian newspaper lashes out at HS article speculating on new Winter War

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The Russian mass-circulation newspaper Komsomolskaja Pravda on Monday compared a story in Helsingin Sanomat with a controversial programme aired in mid-March on the Georgian television channel Imed, about an imaginary attack by Russia against Georgia. The countries fought a brief war in August 2008, so the programme raised a certain amount of panic.
      The Russian newspaper’s article commented on a piece in Helsingin Sanomat which imagined a situation in which a conflict like the Winter War of 1939-1940 were to break out now between Russia and Finland (see linked article below).
      The HS article appeared already on March 6th, and was the 14th installment in a series of articles on the 70th anniversary year of the Winter War. On Monday this week Komsomolskaja Pravda had as its sub-headline “Georgia syndrome emerges in north”, even though the HS article appeared more than a week before the Georgian TV programme that is alluded to.
     
With a circulation of about 340,000, Komsomolskaja Pravda is considered a serious newspaper in Russia, but it is also outspokenly patriotic.
      The paper’s Stockholm correspondent wrote in the article, that the war, “which in Finland is called the Winter War”, has been discussed much in the Finnish media, but that Helsingin Sanomat went the furthest in its imaginings.
     
In a commentary which accompanied the article, which was headlined “Childish complex”, the writer Andrei Baranov accuses the Finnish media of trying to frighten the Finnish people, and points out that Finland is not particularly important for Russia at the moment, and that there is no need to send any tanks.
      The page also includes a photograph, in which soldiers of the Red Army examine a Finnish state flag that had been captured from Finnish forces in 1940. The caption asks if Helsingin Sanomat wants this plot line to be repeated.
      Helsingin Sanomat editor-in-chief Janne Virkkunen says that the article was not intended to harm relations between the Russians and the Finns.
      He also said that there was no attempt to promote possible Finnish membership in NATO.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  What if the Winter War broke out now? (6.3.2010)

Helsingin Sanomat