According to Parliament Speaker Jussi Halla-aho, in the discussions with the Ukrainian leadership, the situation on Finland’s eastern border came up in addition to the Holodomor.
KIEV Speaker of the Parliament and presidential candidate of the Basic Finns Jussi Halla-aho participated today in the Ukrainian capital in memory of the victims of the Holodomor. The Holodomor is a famine engineered by the Soviet regime in 1932-1933, which hit Ukrainians the hardest.
There were guests from numerous countries, including the presidents of Latvia, Lithuania and Switzerland. The dignitary guests had to spend the morning in civilian shelters due to a series of drone strikes carried out by Russia lasting several hours.
Halla-aho spent almost the whole night in shelter.
– We woke up to the air raid warning after two and left the bomb shelter. We only got out of the hotel ten minutes before the scheduled departure, so it’s been busy, Halla-aho told in an interview.
A statement on the Holodomor was handed over to Ukraine
The memorial service was held in the morning in the center of Kyiv at the Holodomor memorial. President Volodymyr Zelenskyi in his speech compared the events of 90 years ago to today.
– We will never forget what Ukraine has had to go through. And we will certainly stop the new genocide that Russia, which inherited the criminal nature of totalitarianism, brought to our country.
Halla-ahok also sees similarities between the famine of the last century and the current attack. He addressed the issue in his speech to the Ukrainian parliament.
– Russia is still a country for which the lives of its own or strangers mean nothing at all. The current war is a reflection of the same sick features of the Russian state philosophy, to which the Holodomor is also connected, says Halla-aho.
So far, 32 countries have officially recognized the Holodomor famine as genocide, Finland’s neighbors being the Baltic countries. In Finland, it depends on the prevailing operating principles.
– In Finland, although like in many other countries, there is no such parliamentary culture as to make statements on historical events, says Halla-aho.
A solution was found in the parliament, that the names were collected under a declaration, which states that the Holodomor should be considered a genocide. The statement was signed by 164 MPs, and Halla-aho handed it over to the Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament yesterday to Ruslan Stefanchuk.
– The Ukrainians were very happy about it, says Halla-aho.
The eastern border was discussed with the Ukrainians
According to Halla-aho, the discussions he had in Kyiv with the Ukrainian leadership also concerned events around Finland’s eastern border.
– They follow the situation very closely and are aware of it. To them, this appears as a completely consistent Russian action towards its neighbors.
The Speaker of the Parliament says that Finland makes its own decisions independently, but can take into account what other countries in a similar situation do.
– We easily refer to various international agreements when we want not to do something, but if the Baltic countries covered by the same agreements can do those things, it shows that the problem is rather in our interpretations.
Halla-aho did not want to comment on the question of whether the last functioning border crossing on the eastern border will remain open.
– I am not going to give instructions to the government, because this would easily be interpreted as criticizing the government. My picture of the situation is that Russia will continue to push people across the border just as long as Finland accepts these people, says Halla-aho.