Survey: Majority of Finns consider Russia a significant military threat

The proportion of people who considered Russia a threat increased by 25 percentage points since a similar survey was carried out last year.

Meanwhile, just six percent of respondents said they think that Russia does not pose a major military threat.

Eva’s survey was carried out in early March and the results are based on the answers of more than 2,000 people.

Only about a fifth of respondents considered Russia to be part of the European cultural sphere, while 60 percent answered they did not consider Russia part of this sphere.

However, 58 percent of survey respondents considered Russian citizens to be pleasant people. Around 20 percent disagreed with this statement, and the remaining respondents found it difficult to say what they thought about Russian citizens.

Russian unreliability rises 

Eva’s survey also showed that more people in Finland find Russia to be untrustworthy, with 74 percent considering Russia to be an unreliable contract partner, an increase of 34 percentage points from last year.

“Finns’ views on Russia are very gloomy. They also explain why a clear majority of Finns have turned to Nato membership. However, Finns believe that Russia’s problem is not its people, but the country’s leadership,” Eva’s research manager Ilkka Haavisto said in a statement.

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This story is posted on The Barents Observer as part of Eye on the Arctic, a collaborative partnership between public and private circumpolar media organizations.