Martti J Kari: when an American says fake news, do you know what it is in Russian? Sami: No. It's hybrid truth, so even there it's translated as truth but it's just hybrid truth, gibridnaya Pravda, so it tells about the Russian mindset, meaning tactical truth is a way to get out of an unpleasant situation, buy time, or mislead; that the autocrat receives
his power from God, whereby if you challenge the autocrat, you challenge God. Even now, I'm not sure that Putin will be ousted. Russia does have this kind of palace coup culture. Yes, Khrushchev, for instance, he was sidelined, Brezhnev sidelined him, and he wasn't killed, his his predecessor Beria. When they fought for power after Stalin's death,
Beria was shot. So basically they should have the ability to disconnect from the global internet now, meaning from the 15th onwards. Which means they have their own root server; they have the ability to cut connections to the West and so on, but they haven't implemented it, at least not yet. Alright, welcome to the Negotiator channel, my guest is Dr. Martti J. Kari. Welcome. Well, thank you.
Great, and the topic is Russian strategic culture. If I tease you a bit, can Vladimir Putin be blamed for mistakes made by the Mongols?
Well, in principle, if we think about strategic culture So, if I were to tell you a bit about what strategic culture is—that is, strategic culture means that it describes how a state, in practice the state's leadership regards a threat directed at it and how it perceives that threat and how it responds to that threat, whether it is an internal or external threat, and how that country is structured, how the administration is structured—that is basically
strategic culture. And if we start to break down Russia's current strategic culture, you can always find those layers, going all the way back to the era of Mongol rule; you find six to seven layers there, meaning part of that current Russian strategic culture is what the Mongols brought back then: cruelty, lying, torture, and so on.
still, they are still, in a way, there in the Russian strategic culture and they are of Mongol origin. Yes, well, let's put this here, so here multi-layered, like this strategic culture, you have one table, this has gone over a million views, that University of Jyväskylä's Studia Generalis lecture where you go through it, so let's start it playing, and here in your table there are several levels, and let's listen a bit, first you explain what
happened in such a very short time when Boris Yeltsin was in power, when even NATO membership was considered, the West was no longer a threat, democracy, that democracy. Yes, and this remained, as you said in that video. So, and that you can't really distinguish on a timeline that this, this was Was it perhaps before the Mongols, was there possibly peace then, or was there because before the Mongols there was Kievan Rus, Kievan Rus, which was this kind of
democratic, in a way, a bit like, a bit like Athens, meaning free, rich men chose a council like this that decided on matters, then this V, it was called a veche, and the V-bell was the kind of bell used to call people together to hold these meetings and such, meaning Kievan Rus was, in a way, this kind of similar type to Athens,
democratic; the Mongols came, the Mongols brought autocracy to Russia then, and it grew stronger from there, then, then Constantinople was won—no, no, no, no, Constantinople was conquered in the Eastern Roman Empire was destroyed, at which point the seat of the Eastern Roman church moved to Moscow, whereby this autocracy, in a way, merged with this
ecclesiastical power, giving rise to a sort of concept that the autocrat receives their power from God, meaning that if you challenge the autocrat, you challenge God; and that transferred to communism as well, so that if you challenge the autocrat—if you challenge the party—you challenge Marxism, and you're in trouble, so in exactly the same way. And now it goes exactly the same way, even though there is no ideology anymore other than this Putinism, which
is not an ideology, but in any case, there is that autocrat; if you challenge him, you are in trouble, as it has always been in Russian culture an infallible autocrat who has received their power from somewhere and where you challenge it in trouble There is also that Eastern like Rome or Orthodox church and wasn't there some kind of theory influencing there too Yes exactly I mean it is this this heavenly power and ecclesiastical power combining And
now Patriarch Kirill among others supports Putin very strongly in this war too because there they are fighting a war a war against this kind of degenerate West against where there are same-sex marriages and so on Yeah I laughed out loud by the way when there was that Rolex watch on Kirill's wrist 1200 Yeah it's the price of the watch those priests have pretty good salaries there Well but in the final part of this clip that was shown it already went into Putin's
at the time, and not much changed there; that was interesting, by the way, when you said that Kyiv-led, well, the Great Russian historical land So is it, like, is Ukraine symbolic on this level too?
For Putin, Ukraine is particularly important, like, militarily and politically, but also, yes, it's such an emotional thing too, but specifically, like, militarily, because the Russians have that strategic culture; there have been attacks; after the Mongols, Napoleon attacked there, and Hitler and so on, so the Russians feel that someone always
attacks, and if we look at the map, well, Poland's From Ukraine's western border begins the so-called Central Russian Upland, which is quite flat, divided only by a few rivers and the Pripet Marshes, so it is easy to attack with horses and tanks; thus, Russia feels that it is unprotected from the west, so it needs a buffer zone there.
Before, the Warsaw Pact was the first buffer zone, and then the second zone was these Soviet republics: the Baltic states, Belarus, and Ukraine. Now the Soviet Union collapsed and the Warsaw Pact dissolved, so both of these buffer zones disappeared; they still have Belarus in their grip, but are extremely concerned about Ukraine because if Ukraine were to slide to the West, then the 'evil' NATO would be right there nearby; it's a bit like this.
regarding strategic culture, it's a bit like the Borg in Star Trek which like, well, just assimilates everything and in a way it grows all the time until it like fills the whole universe. But I don't think it's quite about that here, that in a way, Russia, it's a bit like it has to be all the time in a sort of aggressive growth because otherwise it like shrinks, but it's not perhaps total dominance however, but more like in a way just causing a ruckus on the borders. Yes, Nicholas I said that small wars in the border regions keep the nation disciplined and, well, and
Russia doesn't have the strength to do these Borg things, but well, it would gladly do them, and this has now been practiced in smaller countries before Ukraine and it has been quite successful, I had Pekka Toveri who mentioned that there were indeed these, er, Chechen wars and it was sort of then there was, one could also say that, er, the conquest of Crimea was a certain kind of, like, easy war, er, but are these kinds of easy wars enough, or was this now then
like, a miscalculation? I mean, I personally, my own, when I teach intelligence at the university and we actually have this kind of, like, lecture on intelligence failure where we talk about how Israeli intelligence failed in the Yom Kippur War, the '73 war. So it went so that when Israel beat the Arab countries in the '67 war, they developed a kind of, like, sense of superiority, so wasn't it the Six-Day War or something? In the Six-Day War, a certain kind of
the sense of superiority that the Arabs are no match, and then this sense of superiority combined with the fact they didn't understand what Egypt's political will was, meaning they thought Egypt intended to reconquer the entire Sinai region back after having lost it in the '67 war, whereas Anwar Sadat's goal was merely to get one soldier, to
caricature it, one soldier to the eastern side of the Suez Canal, to the Sinai side so they could set the political process for returning Sinai to Egypt back in motion, and Israel didn't understand this; so here are like two mistakes: this political misjudgment of why the war is happening, and then this operational misjudgment: they are not capable of anything against us. And here is the same thing has probably happened regarding Ukraine, meaning...
Putin or the intelligence services that produced this information, they...
had a wrong concept on which they built the analysis, or then they...
evaluated this situation incorrectly as well. This military performance has also been abysmal, which feels strange, as you'd think they would have been able to...
gather intelligence on what would happen. Yes, but they probably thought it would go as easily as in Crimea. You mentioned these intelligence officers, so this was also very intriguing, this kind of matryoshka doll around the strong narrative or god-like being. So could you tell us a bit about these layers, what kind of levels there are, or Putin's...
around [him] and how they fit into this strategic culture framework, because there...
There are the guys around him; there's Patrushev, Bortnikov, and Naryshkin.
Yes, they've been around him. Are they siloviks? Yes, so they are...
former KGB members from the 70s from Leningrad, and then Sergei Ivanov...
...was part of that group as well, but he was put in charge of environmental affairs.
So apparently the problem there was that Ivanov disagreed...
...about the use of force in the Donbas region and such, so he was put...
...to manage environmental affairs, which is basically...
...getting fired, and the problem is that these guys are all the same.
A so-called confirmation bias occurs, meaning no one challenges the idea, no.
this kind of... is used, as we are taught once again there at the university, this devil's advocate, meaning there is some guy who challenges that thinking, saying it's not like this, it's not like this, it's not like this, and then furthermore, if we think about these intelligence services that push that report and analysis to those leaders, there are three services; there is the FSB, which is responsible for domestic security, but when Putin
came to power, he added to the FSB's structure this kind of foreign intelligence department that handles the so-called near abroad, meaning the former Soviet parts, meaning the Baltic states, Belarus, and Ukraine. So we have Inside the FSB, there is its own intelligence department, and then we have the SVR foreign intelligence service, Naryshkin, who got a bit of a grilling then
on February 22nd in that session, the Security Council session, because he didn't know what was being talked about. We have Naryshkin, but Naryshkin handles like the far abroad, not the near abroad. And then we have the GRU, which is the military intelligence service, which as its name suggests, directs its intelligence toward military targets plus creates conditions for the implementation of Russian security policy. Like in Crimea, that was a GRU operation,
and now these, these, these services compete with each other, and when they compete with each other over turf and resources, then it is wise to tell not objective information for the superior, but the kind of information he wants to hear because on average, a person would rather hear the kind of information that pleases him rather than what challenges his worldview; so this has likely
happened here. So, regarding these circles, there were also these boyars, but these siloviki are not—they are not like boyars—they are all, I mean they are all boyars; it has like, it has three components: it has the tsar who never makes mistakes, princes from whom a tsar might grow, and then there are these boyars surrounding them—so there are administrative boyars and military boyars and siloviki boyars and so on; they are the, they are the layer that is between the
tsar and the people, and they make those mistakes; will they then be refined from those princes? Or they can already evolve from them... Yeah, and there's probably quite a power struggle there now intensely. Churchill said—and I think it's well put—he said that when watching Russia's internal political struggle, it's like watching a fight of bulldogs under a rug; you just see the rug moving, but you don't know who's winning until someone crawls out as the winner, and then the people who seem
surprisingly fatalistic in this framework, having been like conditioned to endure suffering and corruption. Oh no, no, they can't help it.
What can they do? Well, in a way, there was that short illusion of democracy where they at least learned perhaps to communicate; in fact, even that democracy was a dirty word, that was that '90s-style robber capitalism, that when they were given those privatization coupons, then these oligarchs sort of took those coupons and and and took over those former state production facilities and the oil and so forth, so the common people were left empty-handed, meaning they have
a very, very poor image of that 1990s; they talk about robber capitalism and a time of chaos. Are these oligarchs then—they didn't really rise to that 'inner circle' at least; are they sort of on the outer rim after all? Well, these, I mean the first wave of oligarchs were these kinds of businessmen, Khodorkovsky, Berezovsky and others. Well, he's not Putin's friend, no, neither of them are, but I mean, they were the guys who realized that now is the time to make money.
and they made, Abramovich and so on, they made, like, they made money, and the deal was that you don't interfere in politics. Well, and what happened?
Khodorkovsky interfered in politics, Berezovsky started doing politics Khodorkovsky is alive but in exile, Berezovsky was found hanged in 'quotes' in London, and so on, so in a way this first-wave oligarchs, who were like these money-oligarchs, well they have been almost cleared out or they have left Russia because it's so hard for them to be there. These second-generation oligarchs are then silovik oligarchs
and, so, because the Russian system works in a way that that when you reach a certain position in the structures of government administration, you have a right to a certain amount of corruption, and the higher you go, the more you get of that corruption, and when you are up there at the boyar level, then you have, well, we're talking about massive corruption in the millions, which you don't
actually own, but the Tsar, as it were, owns your right of possession, so you can basically lose everything in a single night and it works like that—it's a system to keep you loyal to the Tsar, because you have the right of possession to everything you have, but in principle no right of ownership, including your own life; that is, by the way, really interesting information; I mean, I only remember a couple of years ago myself
René Nyberg had this 'Patriarchs and Oligarchs,' so in his book, there was this point that at some stage during Yeltsin's weak period, it was close to ownership rights being given to the people, but then it was taken away, and it was apparently part of this— like, privatization vouchers were distributed to the people, but an elderly woman doesn't understand when she's given that voucher and she's hungry and someone comes, one of those racketeer types, a guy in a leather jacket with a shaved head, comes and says,
'Here's a cabbage for you, and you give me that voucher.' Of course she gives it.
Then ownership of forest and land is still, like, dependent on the state's hand, yes, but that's interesting, and then about the situation in Ukraine, there were many more questions.
from a negotiation perspective, now that Putin has, in a way, lost face at the very least because he has failed operationally and also as a wise story, so how fast could the wave be with which such a failure is wiped away by force or otherwise—look, Putin hasn't failed; the Tsar does not fail the Tsar does not make mistakes; instead, they have now started looking for those
those boyar-culprits, boyar-culprits, and they found them now that I mentioned that the FSB handles the near abroad, so last Friday, if I recall correctly, there was a raid at the FSB involving the FSO, which is the president's security guard—so the FSB boys and then one of the FSB's directorates, which is internal security, they conducted a raid
there at the Lubyanka, meaning the FSB headquarters, and at 20 other locations, and they raided and shook things up, and there there, the head of the FSB's Fifth Directorate, meaning the foreign service, director Beseda and his first deputy Bolukh, they were both put under house arrest and were accused of both providing false information
to Putin and the misappropriation of state funds Yes, because their task was to use those state funds to bribe those pro-Russian individuals, organizations, and parties in Ukraine, so they had apparently stolen that money, but it's not really a reason because if they hadn't given false information
to Putin, or if Putin hadn't just, like, or even if they had given correct information to Putin, but the story goes that they gave false information because the Tsar is infallible, but if they had given correct information and this kind of mistake hadn't happened where many Russians are dying now, then the fact that they have stolen the money wouldn't have mattered. Well, the boyars can be thrown under the bus, but is it enough that at some point, Medvedev
was still allowed to be president for a while, and Yeltsin and even Gorbachev weren't killed, so they could, like, retire to a dacha; nowadays they— Yeah, would there be an exit card for Putin after all? I mean, I'm still not sure.
about Putin being ousted; after all, Russia has this kind of palace coup culture. Yes, Khrushchev, for instance, he was sidelined; Brezhnev sidelined him in '64 and he wasn't killed. His predecessor Beria—when they fought for power after Stalin's death, well, Beria was shot; the armed forces essentially went over to Khrushchev's side under Zhukov's
leadership, and then a certain general shot Beria with his own hands, so there is a bit of both cultures. And then when Gorbachev was set aside in '91, he wasn't shot, and at that point the armed forces were somewhat on the sidelines; they were watching what was actually happening, and there was humiliation involved. I interviewed Esko Aho about that year '91, and he said that there at the stage when it was shown how Yeltsin basically forced Gorbachev, dictating to him, 'Sign your name here, buddy.' So it was quite
clear that a change of power was happening, but Yeltsin was a weak, weak leader and in a way took Putin, a bit of a protégé, under his wing.
Was Yeltsin also part of that St. Petersburg gang? No, he is—well, he's from the Urals, but isn't there a bit of a... or like, since everyone in Putin's inner circle is from St. Petersburg, doesn't it always go like that—a regional group, a judo gang, is put in charge? No, but rather, Yeltsin actually chose Putin as his successor for that reason, or actually there are two factors: one is that Putin was seen as strong enough that he
is able to guarantee immunity for the Yeltsin clan, and on the other hand Putin was seen as so weak that the oligarchs imagined they would be able to control Putin, so there are essentially two different views here that both supported Putin's rise to power, because these Berezovskys and they supported Putin at the beginning, and Berezovsky imagined he was some kind of kingmaker still, or imagined so until he—in quotation marks—
hanged himself; until then, he thought he was some kind of kingmaker. Well, you teach there in the master's program at the University of Jyväskylä, what was it?
Intelligence—it is the Security and Strategic Analysis master's program, and I teach intelligence analysis there, and applications are open, and they are groups of about a hundred people... uh, meaning the applicants, or, or the age group that... Well, we had just under 300 applicants last year, of which we took fi... Okay. And then our master's phase is divided into two years; the first year
is one where the basics of intelligence are covered, and it's the kind that interests quite a lot of people, so the stre... the course strength is 120, and then the strengths of these second-year intelligence analysis courses are about 30; they are like our own, these security and strategic master's program's, well, students who are studying, like, that analysis, and then we have, among others, well,
students from security authorities who are not doing master's studies, but just studying, for example, the intelligence analysis courses already, but that like the big one, that first year is bulk, there's a lot, lot, lot studied all over the university, and then this second year is like this targeted one, so there are only about 30 people, and there you can probably open up—since you have a background here, I was holding back in case someone doesn't know—so you are a colonel (ret.), so you have a background here in the army and
intelligence forces, so yeah, I served in military intelligence from 88 to the year 2017, so what does that make, 30 years, but my dream as a young man was to be a humanist after all, so I was supposed to be a history teacher, but then I went to paratrooper school as a conscript, like in our...
we went from the scout troop if we just could, and then then I, well it was actually fun, I thought. It was nice to parachute at night with a blackened face and learn how to blow up a bridge or blow up railway tracks or whatever was needed, and wow, this is quite nice, and I liked it, and then I stayed there for the summer to work and I've been on that path ever since. Have you seen that French series like 'The Bureau' on Yle, for example. Is it this,
I mean this, this where there are these spies, where they use this Tintin codename Yeah it is, it's good. Yeah, is it a depiction, how close is it in your opinion? No, I mean, no. I mean, I was in signal intelligence, signal intellig- quite boring, it's a bit like sitting there with headphones on, hoping something catches it hits? Well, aren't they even throwing around a code name so that well, what about signals intelligence, now there is of course
hybrid analysis and data flows in communication networks, you already presented back then if I recall correctly, that sensational theory that Russia has like partially peeled itself even from the internet, so... Yeah, now they, now there, I mean now there, on the 11th, or at the beginning of March, an order was given to the state agency to prepare for disconnecting from the internet by the 11th or to prepare to create the capability to disconnect from the internet by 11.3. and
that capa- capa- capability must be reported by 15.3., which means they should in principle have the capability to disconnect from the global internet now, meaning Starting from the 15th, which means that they have their own root server, they have the ability to cut connections to the West and so on, but they haven't put that into practice, at least not yet. And now, of course, they could just cut those cables,
one of which goes to Finland, or just shut it down, but surely now, for example, a lot of data comes via satellite and mobile phones, so and then again, global name servers—outside of those, I don't think they can shut it down completely. They have their own, they have their own name server, so in the world there are 13 DNS name servers, these root servers, but the Russians have built their own root server, so they have their own root server that they, like, intend to use. That's what they use.
when their Russian segment is isolated from the rest of the internet Well, Elon Musk's Starlink might use some proprietary protocol but it probably won't be quite legal to use them there soon. Yeah, they are probably looking for them all the time, VPNs all the time and so on. You also participated in legislative drafting; I myself was, by the way, invited by the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Justice, I did this, participated as a permanent expert on the Act on Bondholders, which
passed. It was quite a 'sausage factory' process. I don't know how you experienced the legislative drafting process. Was it interesting? It was really, you see, I was supposed to retire in '15 when I turned 55, the retirement age for a colonel, or Yeah, or rather, when you become a colonel, you sign a paper saying you'll retire at 55, even though by law a colonel serves until 60, but that's where it's usually seen whether you'll become a general or not, whether a path opens,
if you are in such a time window that a general's position opens up before you, and well, for me it didn't open up, but I was kept for two years to work on those laws and asked to stay for another two years to work on these laws and see if a window opens there, then you'll take it, and then I said sure, I can stay of course since I don't have any other work and I don't
really want to stay home yet just waiting to die, so then I I worked on those laws for two years, and it was certainly an interesting project all in all; I saw, you see, the parliamentary preparation and then I saw the legal preparation and then I saw the operational preparation, so so it was an extremely interesting whole, especially as I was involved in both the military law and military intelligence law working group, the civilian intelligence law working group, and also the intelligence oversight at the Ministry of Justice, plus then also
outlining the new operational role of the Security Intelligence Service, in Päivi Nerg's working group, plus the parliamentary monitoring group, plus the Ministry of Defence's working group that wrote the military intelligence law line by line, I basically just spent two years on laws. Yeah.
as a tactical observation itself, it was just that, a bit earlier, Stubb had failed with that administrative register law. And there was the famous '90% support' and then actually they didn't support it, so I personally felt those statements coming in were very important, so that that they are supportive. And so in this law of mine, it was that were there any interesting statements given there, by the way, like
from the private sector? Yeah, we had involved in that law drafting, We had a lawyer from the University of Helsinki, and then we had from the EK, the Confederation of Finnish Industries. We had a representative with us, and then from the Association of Finnish Lawyers, so we had, I mean it was quite, like, it had operational people and then there were these: EK, the Association of Finnish Lawyers, University of Helsinki and so on. So it was quite a, quite a broad group
that prepared it, those laws, and then we had both public hearings and then we took in feedback from time to time, so it really was like, interesting, an interesting process. Did a good law come out of it in your opinion? You're biased of course. Well, I'm biased but yes, I mean, now, from what I have read, for example, the Information or Intelligence Ombudsman's and the Intelligence Oversight Committee's statements then the law is good, yes, and I mean it could a bit
To put it in concrete terms: does it make it possible, for instance, if I'm suspected of...
...being a foreign agent, for my WhatsApp messages, for example, to be read? Well, in principle, yes. So there are certain triggers, and...
For instance, Section 4 of the Military Intelligence Act...
...states what military intelligence can be used for.
It includes intelligence or espionage directed at the Defense Forces; so if it is suspected...
...that you are carrying out espionage against the Defense Forces, then on that basis, a court order can be sought to subject you to surveillance, and...
the court then assesses if this is important, whether the information can be obtained...
by any other means, and so on, and after that, you can be monitored. Yes.
but it's not like that, that someone just starts following you because we are a democracy and there are many, like, steps, steps in a way before the whole thing happens, and then earlier there was a stir about Prime Minister Sanna Marin's, like, personal phone and the government phone, so in that it sounded a bit like her, like, personal phone is quite like a basic iPhone, and then the government phone is like [containing] a bit more robust security technology, so, how big of a threat do you
see that, for example—meaning the eavesdropping on our decision-makers' phones? Well, surely someone is trying to listen in, but I want to emphasize again that because you are Finnish and if you communicate so that the other end of the communication is in Finland, then the court does not grant that collection permit; if the other end of the communication is abroad, then
the collection permit can be granted for that traffic, but communication occurring domestically does not get a permit. Were there levels like this? I remembered this I am not a big fan of the current Prosecutor General myself, but one of her possibly honorable charges was when Helsingin Sanomat leaked—was it the intelligence center? No, the Signal Intelligence Center's location and information about it, so did this type of legal text come into it for these matters, like
That happened much later; it was, it was in the autumn of 2017, was it 2017.
In December, there was this Signals Intelligence Center leak, and these laws came—well, yes, no, sorry, they came into force in 2019. Yeah, but they didn't really have anything to do with them because they followed their own path, they went their own path. Yes, indeed, they followed such a separate path; I didn't even think of such a connection that you just mentioned. Yes, yes.
Well, interesting. I get a lot of, well, from people— partly conspiracy theories, some are quite possible percentage theories, something happens, and they're just interested in these things to some extent; the laws were completed—that is, the drafts were completed in the autumn of 2017, so the drafts were ready before this Tikkakoski.
Gate happened, yeah, K, it went that way like I said at the start, yeah, I started to think, even though the law only came into force in 2019, it's so slow then, the grinding at the end. Well, now we could return to this strategic thinking and is it now so that in this thinking of Putin and possibly all the tsars before him, the thinking is that, well, it is specifically some Western power that comes from there like through an open lane, so the question is mainly for example, er, is it NATO or is it the USA, what is the arch-enemy? It has been, after all,
arch-en arch-enemy nowadays is NATO, not the USA, so more like NATO, USA, NATO, it's like, well, NATO is the USA in their opinion, M, but it has been, after all, during Catherine the Great's time it was Turkey. So when Crimea was fought over during the time of Peter the Great, it was Sweden, yes.
Sweden, Sweden and so on. Did we also get into the bad guys' club yet? Yes.
Well, we were, I mean, we were bad guys too then. Explain that, apparently you...
said that in some poems too, there are basically Finns and Swedes.
even Pushkin, The Bronze Horseman... while riding. We're talking about how...
Peter came to the Neva marsh and decided that 'I will found a city here', and...
after that, to spite the haughty neighbor, which was Sweden, the haughty neighbor, and when he arrived there, there were...
these step-sons of nature, poor fishermen in those small, yes, Chukhontsy, Chukhontsy, meaning Chukhna, which usually means something like...
Finnish-speaking tribes, people like us, for example 'chuhonet' is a word that they use for us, and which is then, for instance, in 'The Unknown Soldier' twisted into 'suhna'. But is this still a remnant, do they still think of this block as a threat, Finland-Sweden? You'd think we don't have the muscle for that. No, they don't think that way anymore. I agree about Finland and Sweden, yes, there is a pretty big power vacuum there, and well, would NATO fill that
power vacuum? Would this possibly be in the interest of Finland's strategic culture to join NATO, because now we have to understand that when people talk about whether we should join now or next week or in a month, this is not a question of weeks or months.
But this is a question that affects our grandchildren. I have two grandchildren: Olivia, eight or nine months old, and Siiri, four years old.
So this decision of ours affects their security, which we are making now, and the fact that no one can guarantee that over the next 40 years, there will be no armed threat from Russia toward Finland. We must prepare for the possibility that this could happen. We must maintain a strong national defense, supported by an alliance. Then, if it happens that Russia democratizes,
then wow, we will be a NATO country that knows Russia, which will allow us to be at the forefront of reaping all the benefits that come from starting to support Russia—well, Russia's—a democratic Russia.
processes, I mean, so, so, so, I don't see in either—in either...
situation, whether Russia continues as this kind of authoritarian state, or Russia...
becomes democratic, then I don't see any reason not to join NATO, but on the contrary. M, Boundless love. Yes, indeed, Germany has long been the main enemy in the First and Second World Wars—Nazis, fascists—then then indeed, Turkey, Mongols, it's always about who... Poland, Poland has long been like this kind of real main enemy, or Poland-Lithuania.
Actually, I'll pick up on that 'Nazi'—I mean, now in this war in Ukraine, well, one is supposed to believe that here we are fighting against Nazis, and then, was it the other one was like drug users? So there is then, in a way, like there is some kind of puritanism, yes, because Kirill talks about how...
the West is degenerate, that there are same-sex marriages and drugs and so on, and then Russia represents the Third Rome, the eternal Rome, represents everything holy and beautiful, and they have the right to wage that war for that reason too, but I mean that Nazi thing sounds completely insane. Like, do they really believe it? Because I mean they had the situation where the Germans attacked back in '41 during Midsummer,
Operation Barbarossa, so well, some Ukrainians were sort of on the German side, as Bandera was this leader of the Ukrainian resistance movement even after the war, and in a way that Ukrainian the resistance movement's connection to the Germans, so it sort of justifies labeling them as Nazis in the eyes of the Russians, and a certain amount there certainly is, as there are neo-Nazis in all countries,
but well, in my opinion, not in any way strikingly many, and this Zelensky is Jewish, so Russia talking still like that, somehow it's a bit hard to make him into a Nazi in my opinion. Well, a drug user he might be, but well, I mean he is a drug user, but I think it's funny, a person can be both a Nazi and a Jew, probably the world's only Nazi Jew. Yeah, but this rhetoric apparently isn't questioned there in Russia, because it's so strong, it is
like, the Nazi card is such a strong card that it's like, it's a bit like the Monopoly 'Get Out of Jail Free' card; it's such a strong card that when you wave the Nazi card, the people think, 'Well, we really must now participate in the special operation if there really are Nazis there,' because they are taught that the legacy of World War II, or actually as they call it, the Great Patriotic War, is so strong there; it's instilled in even small children
and it's carried through their entire upbringing and education so that the bad guys, namely the Nazis, they really are evil. There's some grim irony there; I'm recording this with Ivan Puopolo in the studio. We have this weekly punditry show, and before this war we joked about this kind of woke culture, I don't know if you're familiar, but I mean, there you have the ultimate, like opponent, the evil Nazi, so now then, well, Putin said okay, attacking like against Nazis, so what does that make, like, Putin? He can't then be
a Nazi if, if he's like attacking a Nazi, so that, well, in a way that he's probably not a communist either, so I don't know how they, are they just nationalists or what is it? Actually, they don't really wave that nationalist card that much there, I said that now there is such an island that's actually missing an ideology. I mean, it's this kleptocratic autocratic system that like surrounds
Putin, there is no longer that, like, in a way, that old Russia, but I mean The Russians skillfully combine old Russia and the Soviet Union.
They always take from both traditions whatever...
...is grand to them, whether it's uniforms, military ranks, or anything else.
For instance, the national anthem—it's the Soviet anthem, they just changed...
...the lyrics. So they skillfully combine these...
two cultures quite shamelessly. You know Russian, by the way.
What is it—it's no longer 'Great and Mighty Soviet Union,' is it 'Great and Mighty Russia'?
Russia. Okay, right. And this 'Great Russian' mindset, then, perhaps...
...as you said, this combination and a kind of...
non-binarity is part of it; that was also an interesting concept in your...
In the lecture, this kind of tactical lying, or what was it? Yeah, tactical...
Ly... yeah, so, no, tactical truth, truth. Well, but, I mean, there are like gray shades. Or is this kind of bi- non-binary communication common too?
It is, it is, I mean, it was seen for example in the Naryshkin case, and anyone who knows Russian noticed that it was played quite brilliantly, in a way. This goes into linguistics, but it played brilliantly with Russian verb aspects, namely perfective and imperfective aspects, one of which is a kind of near future, where something is about to happen, and the other is one that says that right now
something is happening, and Naryshkin used it the near future regarding the recognition. He said that 'we will'...
in the near future to annex these rebel – he didn't use 'rebel' but republics to Russia. Was this the one where P we aren't talking – we aren't talking about this, but we are talking about whether we recognize, i.e., the independence of the republics, meaning in my opinion it was – it was like if I were a Russian teacher, as I do teach Russian at the cadet school or at the
National Defence University, I would take it because it was such an absolutely magnificent aspect exercise and it was performed by the president and the head of foreign intelligence, absolutely magnificent I didn't see it that way, I just saw that guy falling to the back laps of the outer ring, like it was some staged thing an occasion for humiliation, but apparently there were these levels here. Yeah, it was great, yeah. Well then, these sort of... I mean, it would feel that Finland and Sweden are not
right now in that, like, slightly grinding friction and expanding Russia's like, in the very first, like, grinding mill, but that there are like countries like Georgia and Chechnya and Ukraine and Belarus, the former Soviet republics are like the 'near abroad', so—but now we come to this—personally, I am a NATO supporter—so, somehow it feels like: would our sort of 'well-behaved' status on the color chart protect us?
No, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, that is, in my opinion, like intellectual dishonesty, that we think that if we behave well or if we are hidden so the Russians won't notice us. It doesn't work like that; rather, for the Russians, there hasn't been any operational need to attack here, mm yeah, you were By the way, as a side note, he was in the studio again, and you were surprisingly kind to this, well, delusional guy from the Aleksanteri Institute who speaks there it was quite an interesting conversation because I always try—I mean, when
I always try to stick to facts, and when I say something, I try to always justify it, and if I find a theoretical framework or similar for it, then I'm really happy, so I don't care to get into a 'yes-it-is, no-it-isn't' kind of thing; he probably used this Russian tactical truth-telling in that soundscape, yeah, he—he was quite filled the soundscape quite a bit specifically by talking, taking away from us in a way, that space, mm yeah and that, that's like a bit—I mean this
taking the space away is like maybe this strategic thinking and then throwing out an analogy came to mind from that, that somehow it feels that at least allegedly Trump had gotten onto some kind of wavelength with Putin but Trump's methods are partly similar, dealing with that kind of like noise, noise, truth/not-truth nonsense there, because I think it's funny that when an American says fake news, meaning fake news, then
do you know what it is in Russian? No. It's hybrid truth, so even there it's translated as being the truth, but it's just hybrid truth, KD Pravda, meaning It tells something about the Russian mindset; in other words, tactical truth is a way to get out of an unpleasant situation, to buy time, or to mislead. I teach negotiation myself, so I often observe that
for example, in foreign negotiations, you often stay in the outer circle and then the inner circle, and in a way, the inner circle's honor is not offended by a lie that is told to the outer circle. And this isn't just Russian culture, but it seems to be particularly strong in Russia. Yeah, they have a word like, well, 'collective guarantee', collective guarantee which means that if you use a tactical truth for that community's
benefit, no one in that community will, in a way, snitch.
Hey, you just lie and they accept it. For example, when the troops went to Crimea, Putin said, 'I don't know who they are, they aren't Russian troops.' The fact that if, if, for example, in Western countries a commander of the armed forces or commander-in-chief denied his own men, it would certainly cause quite a bit of resentment, but the Russians, apparently the soldiers just thought, 'How skillfully tactical truth was used.' Yes, but is it that in these, well, inner circles,
you kind of mentioned that if you take too much from the pot, like for the first oligarch, then you went beyond the code of honor. Does it always have to be checked with Putin or the Tsar? No, because everyone knows, everyone knows. And they didn't, I mean, they didn't actually get into trouble because of that.
that they took too much, except for Khodorkovsky. But the thing is that they in a way, and Khodorkovsky's biggest mistake was that he announced he wants to be president, when a deal was made that you can take this money but you don't interfere in politics, and then Khodorkovsky started thinking that now that I have money, I can actually become the president, which was a mistake, and then he was slammed with 10 years in prison, and
so on, and about Abramovich by the way, apparently I lived 13 years in London so I had a colleague who was a Chelsea season ticket holder, and he enjoyed it to the fullest, at that time they were made into the best team in the English Premier League with this money, but he was forced—well, he's now flown to Russia, as mentioned, he was also part of that first wave, but is he still a bit there in Putin's circle of cronies. Well, I don't know exactly because I
suspect that circle is getting smaller and smaller because right now probably Putin isn't interested in money anymore; in a way, he's just trying to, like, save himself in some way. Yeah, and then we get to this, like, foreign influence, meaning you have, well, of course, these Abramoviches that surely by some logic he was like Russia's influencer and of course an ambassador of corruption because he can buy quite a lot and in a way
that goodwill for that kind of, like, robust, romantic Russianness which is also about being a billionaire, but then these own and he has gotten rich here with gas pipeline money, and there are plenty of these.
from Finland too, meaning, well, Lipponen and was this Rönholm also involved there, like involved, so this kind of, like, sort of sphere of power and influence where, like, quite legitimately, they possibly pay consulting fees or board fees, so how important is this as part of this Russian influence network? I mean, the Russians, they founded in 1923 the Cheka, that is, the predecessor to the KGB, this kind of
disinformation bureau whose task was specifically, on the one hand, to strive to spread lies, lies or propaganda in the target countries and to break down the target country's social order and so on, and then in the KGB they talked about this kind of about active measures, 'aktivnyye meropriyatiya', which includes, that is, the fact that extremist movements are supported, at that time peace movements,
parties, these kinds of agents of influence are recruited—an agent of influence means a person who conceals their connection to that intelligence service and holds a high enough position, for example, in politics, business, the trade union movement, or the media, and they are then paid, if necessary, to them, for example, in the form of consultancy fees, and then the third is that actual disinformation is used to try to influence the country's decision-making,
smearing people and individuals in that country, or the country's politics, or corresponding organizations and so on, so, in the KGB there was this active measures and active measures and I, I believe that this, this concept, because it has proven to be incredibly good so it will be continued even during the FSB's time and, and then there is this kind of like Putin's Troll, well, I published this latest Negotiating Mandate at the same
time as Jessikka Aro's Putin's Trolls came out, so it seemed to have a bit of a like another angle, that it was more of this kind of information influence. Yes, so it's the same angle, so back then in 1923 when that disinformation office was founded, so then there was information and then there was a platform back then the platform was the newspaper and film, Battleship Potemkin among others then came radio, then came TV, then came the internet, then came social media,
but this ideology has remained the same the whole time, meaning the Russians very skillfully combine the info-psychological side here and the info-technological side, and in this case, for example, it is like a textbook example of how the Russians skillfully use that whole, whole component; the platform just changes, but the idea stays the same. Yes.
Then that leader-romanticism's, like, perverse side—apparently they've now been able to raise even notorious tyrants such as Stalin onto some kind of pedestals there.
How is this possible—the longing for that old Soviet, I mean?
Someone said that Russians have a longing for a Soviet Union that never existed So it is Soviet nostalgia, when there is a generation that doesn't know what the Soviet Union was really like, so they kind of idealize that nation of 290 million people that everyone feared and which owned vast territories and and sent a person into space and
so this kind of Soviet nostalgia is very strong there and it is fed by those parts that support this current regime, and Stalin was actually quite a good guy, meaning this kind of tyranny was a good way to kind of keep the country secure and the people disciplined yeah, well then, Russia is however economically, it seems to be like
A country the size of Italy, so then another country like that comes to mind this kind of new Axis of Evil, you could think that it's China, well, I don't know I wonder if Mao's cult of personality has already started to be raised, but well, I don't know China very well, I can't talk about China, I have always focused on Russia, yeah, so in a way, in that Russian mythology, China doesn't play—since it's in the wrong direction—any kind of big, big role. Well, not really, it's a bit of a forced marriage because there's
a common enemy, so they are like "friends" and they do some kind of cooperation, but they also had those border disputes, I mean they had them in the 60s, on the Ussuri and such, they did clash people died there and so on, but now they've like found each other because they have the bad United States there as a common enemy, but I don't really know how to talk about China because I've never researched it. Yeah, and with Japan, they had that dispute once, when was it, like 130 years ago when
they kind of set out to conquer Japan and then got beaten then well, since Japan had developed surprisingly so 1905, so it was that recent. Yeah, I was afraid—the 1905 war was the one where in the Battle of Tsushima, the flagship Variag, which by the way, left from that shore in Katajanokka, the Baltic Fleet flagship left for there, went, traveled there for quite a long time, and I think it's great because Japan's
signals intelligence. I mean imagine, in 1904-1905, they monitored that vessel's traffic, meaning radio traffic, and they knew when it was coming into the Tsushima Strait and since it was the flagship maintaining contact, they knew that the entire rest of the fleet was there, and then the Japanese struck with those small motor torpedo boats and so on, and sank the Baltic Fleet, and when that news reached Finland
at the time, a general strike began and we eventually got universal suffrage. Right.
So the Japanese arranged this for us, if we oversimplify history a little bit. Yeah, great, I just noticed that Shoigu had commented on the Kuril Islands, saying that NATO submarines or other nonsense has been seen there again, but Japan hasn't really, I guess, done peace with Russia, so yeah, no they don't accept that those Kurils are...
Russian Soviets, they occupied them after the atomic bomb was dropped, they...
occupied those Kurils. Mm-hmm. Yeah, maybe we should do a separate episode on that if the listeners...
know these Pacific strategies, in a way, because I myself thought...
like this, that there Japan and then China doesn't like Japan and China wants to...
conquer Taiwan at some point and in a way the Yanks have put...
a strategic focus there and and then there's Australia and others...
then Major non-NATO allies there with them, so there's also...
an interesting game developing, but since a person can't master...
everything, I have focused on Russia both at work and as a hobby.
Great, so to wrap things up here, what else do you do?
Is there still a third jump ahead after this career as an officer and...
career as a Doctor of Philosophy? No, I don't think so. Fishing, fishing and walking with the...
dog. I have a lovely little toy poodle, and then we bought...
a cottage last—I've always hated cottages, we've always been abroad...
for the summers, we're crazy about Croatia or the Balkans, but then last...
summer when we couldn't go, we bought a cottage, and I have a friend Pauli—greetings to Pauli, if you're listening, Pauli taught me how to fish, trolling and with a net, and I got hooked on it, and even now I have under the ice...
well, 60 to 180 meters of net, and I'm waiting for the ice to go.
you get to go trolling and get to catch the pike spawning, and that's how I fish very much so now. Well, that's great. Yeah, I have a dachshund as well, and even though I was against it. Oh boy, I have that cottage too, and fishing phase ahead of me. Yeah, it is nice when there's time. Yeah, great.
My guest has been Martti J. Kari, and we have been discussing Russia's strategic culture and the related, well, Ukrainian war's side effects. Thank you, thanks.