The Finnish capital Helsinki has recieved a display of a Russian destroyed tank on one of the central squares. It is said to be one of the T-72 tanks stopped by the Ukranians last year during the early days of the Russian “special operation” near Kiev. RIA Novosti, the official Russian goverment endorced news channel has reported, that Finns are spontaneously placing flowers and candles at the wreckage to commemorate the Russian soldiers who died inside. The spokesperson of the Friends of Ukraine society, that brought the wreck from Estonian capital Tallin, to remind the Finns of the ongoing war, said the Russian speaking social media in Finland has been telling people to bring flowers to the tank, but that the society and Ukrainan refugees have been busy cleaning them away. Russian goverment gave a diplomatic note to the Finnish government for allowing this hatefull display.

Likely the Finnish government had nothing to do with the incident. It is the city officials who allowed this. I am guessing because they were affraid of the potential bad publicity and rage in social media, if they had disallowed it, or simply because the descision was over their capabilities to evaluate reprecussions. In free countries public displays and demonstrations are generally allowed, if they do not cause exessive disturbance, or have an illegal hatefull message. So, it is possible there was nothing anybody could do to stop the tank being set up. Possibly everybody involved thought, that the message it sends is important and fair.

When I served in the Finnish military our pool of main battle tanks consisted of the T-72 tanks. I rode one of them myself on occasion and I knew some of the boys who rode those magnificent beasts. Now, if they had died in combat within their chariot and their death trap was put on display in some city square, I would find that enormously hurtfull, but not at all discouraging of fighting the people who did that. On the contrary, it would anger me.

We do not know, if the Russian soldiers who died inside the tank were willing participants in the criminal attack. Most likely they did not even know they were going to join such an atack before their orders came through. They were propably just serving their country in good faith and they were betrayed by their leaders. They are to be counted among the victims of this mad war and the victims of Putin, the real criminal behind this atrocity. The display of their tank is not far removed from dragging their bodies through a city for the mob to vent anger and fear on them. It is barbaric.

I support Ukraine in their struggle and I think our government should do more, even if it meant depleting some of our stored artillery ammo, despite the fact, that we are a nation bordering Russia. Russian army is busy and has it’s hands full in Ukraine – and we should keep it that way, for our own sakes, for the sake of Ukraine and for the sake of democracy and peace everywhere. Better yet, we should give the Ukrainean forces a fighting chance to beat our common enemy, because Fascism and attacks on other sovereign nations must be repelled, or the greedy evil of this world will see no end to their ambitions to further their interrests at the cost of the freedom of others. That said, I do not think it was ever the Finns, or the Estonians, of all nations that needed to be reminded about the war. We have been living in the shadow of Mordor for generations. To me the tank wreckage was not only an unnecessary and distasteful presentation, but potentially a harmfull display of hate and bitterness. The Russian government building their propaganda image of the West, Estonia and Finland as the enemies of Russia and Russian people are the only winners in this macabre display.