According to Financial Times, the U.S. will stop providing Ukraine with intelligence support. This comes at a time when the Ukrainian Army is once again gaining the upper hand in the war against Russia. Meanwhile, Ukraine has just expressed gratitude to Trump and announced that it will sign a mineral agreement.
This strongly supports the idea that the Russian government has some means of blackmailing Trump. Whether it’s compromising erotic video material or something else—I don’t know—but either way, Trump's position as Vladimir Putin’s pocket rat seems increasingly obvious.
That’s why Ukrainians and Europeans must now, at the very latest, ask whether there is any motivation behind Trump’s actions other than attempting to influence the war in a way that allows Putin to get what he wants—ultimately leading to Ukraine losing its independence. Or at the very least, turning into a Russian puppet state like Belarus.
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Many Finns would prefer that we refrain from criticizing Trump’s actions, while many others would like us to return to the era of Finlandization, when Finns did everything they could to avoid provoking the eastern superpower.
However, the Finnish government has taken a clear stance: we aim to support Ukraine in its war. The reasons for this are both the moral obligation to stand by a country that has been subjected to an illegal invasion and the fear that a Russian victory in Ukraine could lead to an attack on other neighboring states—including Finland.
Of course, Finland’s NATO membership alleviates some of this fear, as it ensures U.S. and other allies’ support in the event of an attack. But if the U.S. government is in Putin’s pocket, the situation looks entirely different. In that case, can Finland truly rely on U.S. assistance when it matters most?
In this regard, there is one crucial point that not all Finns have grasped: Russia is not actually competing with the U.S. for global dominance—China is. It may be that Trump wants to get the Ukraine issue off his hands as quickly as possible to focus on China, even if he isn’t directly controlled by Putin.
For Finland, this means that the only even somewhat reliable support against Russia will come from Europe—especially the Nordic countries—whose military capabilities, however, have been allowed to deteriorate almost completely. That is why Finland must be highly proactive in pushing for European rearmament. And fortunately, the Finnish government has recently been doing exactly that.
