Putin’s mounting threat to Ukraine was not a complete surprise to Helsinki. Finnish officials had seen warning signs from Putin and the Kremlin for more than a decade. “The people grew more and more disillusioned about Russians. And that started, I would say, at the latest in 2008 with the attack on Georgia,” said Mikko Hautala, ambassador of Finland to the United States. “There was a discussion in Finland that Russia is actually becoming something that it was not before: a threat.”
