How Exactly Did Finland Receive Advance Notice Of Ukraine’s Drone Attack Ahead Of SPIEF?

The likelihood that it secretly installed sensors in Ukraine to monitor its northern drone strikes is nil so it was either informed by Ukraine or at least the Baltic States across whose airspace the drones are credibly speculated by many in Russia to have passed.

Finnish Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen revealed that his country somehow or another received advance notice of Ukraine’s drone attack on St. Petersburg ahead of its namesake international economic forum (SPIEF) last week. According to him, “We will not disclose details about which intelligence system and other methods we use to build a situational picture, but we were able to anticipate that situation and we had sufficient preparedness raised during the night.”

It’s important to determine how exactly Finland received such advanced notice. The likelihood that it secretly installed sensors in Ukraine to monitor its northern drone strikes is nil so it was either informed by Ukraine or at least the Baltic States across whose airspace the drones are credibly speculated by many in Russia to have passed. Either of those two scenarios is plausible, the first due to Finland recently complaining about Ukrainian drones and the second due to Russia’s recently threatened retaliation.

As regards the former, it claims that Ukrainian drones accidentally veered into its airspace, possibly due to Russia’s electronic warfare jamming their navigation, while the latter relates to Russia’s foreign spy agency threatening retaliation against Latvia if Ukraine launches drones from its territory. It’s therefore possible that Ukraine either tipped Finland off ahead of time or the Baltic States informed it in real time as Ukrainian drones flew across their airspace (regardless of whether this was with their approval).

Why this matters is because it reaffirms that Finland harbors malicious intent towards Russia by not in turn sharing what it learned, not that it would have made any difference though since Russia presumably detected the drones and wasn’t caught by surprise. It was earlier assessed that “Finland Is On Track To Become One Of Russia’s Most Intractable Foes” as implied by the Russian Ambassador, which accelerates the trend of dangerously merging the Arctic and Baltic fronts of the NATO-Russian New Cold War.

Finland shares NATO’s longest land border with Russia and is therefore of significant importance to the bloc as regards its policy of containing Russia. Even though it hasn’t credibly been accused of hosting Ukrainian drone teams like Latvia recently was and might not risk retaliation from Russia by following in its footsteps, it’s still doing everything that it can to undermine its larger neighbor. This includes hosting more NATO bases and even considering hosting US nuclear weapons too.

Bilateral ties are nowadays altogether different than they were just half a decade ago when friendliness prevailed in their relations and their cross-border trade boomed, but in retrospect, Finland had already been a shadow member of NATO for years prior and only just formalized its ties with the bloc in 2023. After all, it took countries like Albania years to bring its armed forces up to NATO standards, among other criteria, yet Finland was ushered in almost instantly. That says all that needs to be said.

Looking forward, while it’s anyone’s guess whether reportedly Baltic-facilitated Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia will continue, nobody should doubt Finland’s anti-Russian source. It arguably being tipped off about the recent attacks ahead of SPIEF, whether by Ukraine itself or the Baltic States, but declining to inform Russia is the least of its recently unfriendly moves. Finland is truly on track to become one of Russia’s most intractable foes, which is a pity because it’s unprovoked and not what many Finns want.