HELSINKI: Finland’s intelligence agency warned Tuesday that Russian spies could boost their efforts to target and destabilize the new NATO member once the Ukraine war ends.
The Finnish Security and Intelligence Service (SUPO) said that while the Ukraine conflict, triggered by Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022, would probably continue for the “forseeable future,” its end would free up Russian resources.
Finland, which shares a 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) border with Russia, dropped decades of military non-alignment to join NATO in April 2023 in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, enraging the Kremlin.
“Russian intelligence capacity in Europe has suffered due to the war, and Russia is preparing to restore this capacity,” SUPO said in a statement.
“Russian intelligence and influencing resources currently tied to Ukraine will become available to be used elsewhere after the war.”
SUPO said Finland would remain of interest to Russia as “a NATO country between the Baltic Sea and the Arctic region.”
If relations between Europe and Russia improve, “the intelligence threat posed by Russia to Finland will become more diverse, with previous operating methods complemented by methods proven effective in the current environment,” Juha Martelius, Director of SUPO, said.
“These include the extensive utilization of proxy actors and intelligence gathering from bases on Russian soil,” he added.
Finland has in the past accused Moscow of “hybrid warfare” in orchestrating a surge of migrants at their shared border — a charge the Kremlin denied.
Last year, western officials accused Russian vessels of sabotaging undersea communications and power cables in several high-profile incidents in the Baltic Sea in recent months.
But SUPO warned about attributing too many incidents to Russia.
“As various events are readily attributed to Russia, Russian influencing against Finland may appear more extensive than it truly is,” it said.