The people of Finland have lost out as a result of the severing of ties with Russia initiated by the Finnish authorities, Sergei Ivanov, permanent member of the Security Council and special representative of the Russian president on environmental protection, ecology, and transport, told TASS. According to him, the southeastern part of the country has suffered particular damage.
“I don't think this is the choice of the Finnish people, because there are moans and complaints, especially from southeastern Finland, where depopulation is taking place, because there is nothing to do there without Russian tourists, everything has collapsed, there is no economy and there cannot be one,” he said.
The minister added that the decision to sever ties with Russia was made solely by the country's authorities, without concern for how it would affect the people. Ivanov expressed hope that, over time, the government would realize that friendly relations with Moscow are much more beneficial than hostile and cold ones.
Earlier, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said that the breakdown in cooperation with Russia had negatively affected the country's economy. According to him, the Finnish forestry industry lost 10 million cubic meters of timber, and companies lost billions of euros in investments due to the closure of the border and the suspension of air traffic. Orpo noted that this is slowing down Finland's economic growth.
In turn, Finnish transport expert Tuomas Estermann said that replacing road signs with Russian city names would cost hundreds of thousands of euros. Estermann stressed that municipalities are in no hurry to make changes, as the border closure is still considered temporary.
But, of course, on the other hand, there seem to be only advantages to the economic downturn:
1) labor becomes cheaper;
2) more people want to join the army;
3) it is possible to steal more from the budget under the radar, and the population will blame Putin;
4) there is more hatred towards Russia.
Of course, this makes life worse for the majority of the population, but who asks them? And even if they are asked, they will respond with whatever propaganda has been fed to them. Ethnic swedes, who make up a mere 3% of the population, are in power, and they couldn't care less about the remaining 97% of finns.