Perché la “finlandizzazione” non riguarda la neutralità e perché questo scenario non è adatto all’Ucraina

This is not the complete story, Finland had a deal. It did not cut off Soviet Russia from allied support and got secret American cover for this passivity.

>”Despite Finland’s brave resistance, the Soviet Union achieved its territorial objectives within four months.”

Article makes a huge mistake, the ‘territorial objective’ was occupation and annexation of Finland, as per the [Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact#/media/File:Ribbentrop-Molotov.svg) that gave USSR dibs on Finland. It failed.

Stalin agreed to small land areas claiming it as victory as the coming spring thaw would’ve slowed the costly progress even more and he didn’t know the dire situation of Finnish defense strength. There was also a non-zero chance of French-British intervention which would’ve pitched USSR against them. Smaller land areas were therefore acceptable as Stalin could still label it as “victory they wanted”. What Stalin got was not what Stalin wanted.

>”The USSR also imposed heavy economic reparations on Finland, amounting to $300 million—a massive burden for a small country at the time.”

Sidenote: this is true but modern interpretation is that this proved to be a boon to the Finnish industry. Small rural nation having to ramp up heavy industry forwards decades in just few years… Much of that monetary value was in fact other then money, it included: 525 train locomotives, 600+ ships and ice breakers, 52.000 electric engines and huge number of other products. For nation of 3.5 million, that was huge task but jumpstarted the modern heavy industry.

>”Although Finland had to remain neutral, abstaining from alliances, wars, or blocs, this neutrality persisted until 2022, when Finland and Sweden jointly applied for NATO membership in response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.”

It has been argued that the ‘*true neutrality’* ended when Finland joined EU in 1994. This effectively tied Finland to the west and offered some level of security that could be considered as being non-neutral. But, it’s kinda grey area with the EU security clause being so broad and vague.

My personal opinion as a Finn: it was unique situation for singular country and this should not be a “blueprint” for any nation in modern world. No nation should have ‘sphere’s of influence’ over neighboring democratic countries. Finlandization was a mandatory burden to keep ourselves out of complete occupation by Soviets. As a example one should look at the Hungary in 1956 when Soviet Union was quick to bring back the country under their tight control. Bleak part of our history, we still remained mostly independent and actually democratic with gradual improvement in citizens lives…
For Ukraine, similar ‘Finlandization’ would push them backwards decades while cutting most ties with the west and giving Putin a win. It really is not a good option.