Finland is not urging Europe to listen to Putin as the post claims

A fringe pro-Russian politician with Albanian and Italian passports, Armando Mema, who resides in Finland, is appealing to Europe to listen to Putin’s opinion. Some have falsely described this as an appeal from official Helsinki, although Mema is not a representative of Finland

 

We analyze a post on the social network Facebook with the following title:

 

Finland urged people to heed Putin’s words about Europe.

This creates the false impression that Finland as a country is appealing to hear the opinion of Russian President Vladimir Putin, which is surprising, because it, like most European countries, strongly condemns him for his aggression against Ukraine and has imposed sanctions on him.

Finland, like other European countries, fears that it could be Putin’s next target and that is precisely why it became a member of NATO, so there is no logic, nor evidence, that it would make such an appeal. It must also be said that until 1918 Finland was under the Russian Empire, and in 1939 it was attacked by the USSR, during which it lost territories, so it would be strange for it to appeal in favor of the Russians.

But reading that post further, we learn what it’s really about:

Europe should listen to Vladimir Putin’s words. Armando Mamma, a member of the Finnish national-conservative party “Freedom Alliance”, stated this on the social network page X, reports Lenta.ru

Armando Mema is not an official representative of Finland, so there is no reason for his views to be presented as its own. He is neither its president, nor its prime minister, nor its foreign minister, nor even a member of its parliament, let alone a citizen.

He is a citizen of Italy (see: here and here), but is a native of Albania, where he votes in parliamentary elections, which means that he also holds its citizenship, because without it he would not be able to vote. According to EU rules, Italian citizenship allows him to live in Finland, and to some extent to participate in its politics. He has run for the European Parliament elections, as well as for local elections in Finland, but in both cases without success.

He is a marginal and obscure politician who tried his hand at several political parties, eventually ending up in the equally marginal and obscure Freedom Alliance, or, as it is referred to in the post, the Free Alliance. That party does not have a single member of parliament in the Finnish parliament.

Mema only came into the limelight after he interrupted a speech by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in the middle of Helsinki last year with indignant shouts. Mema was then arrested and sentenced to a fine of 110 euros for obstructing or harming a public official in the performance of their duties, most likely under Article 16 of the Finnish Criminal Code.

We have already written (see: here and here) about such marginal politicians across Europe, who spread Kremlin propaganda, which its media outlets like Lenta.ru use as “proof” that “prominent European politicians respect Putin and call for improved relations with him” which has nothing to do with reality (with rare exceptions like Viktor Orbán and Robert Fico).

However, Lenta.ru did not go so far as to claim that Finland as a country had made such an appeal, but rather the author of the Facebook post, which we are now reviewing, added this, thus portraying a bigger Russian propagandist than the Russian propagandists themselves.

The post further says about Mema:

He clarified that Russian citizens are happy to come to Europe to travel and accused Ursula von der Leyen of lying to Europeans about Moscow’s alleged aggressive intentions.

The Finnish politician recalled the words of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said that claims that Russia is allegedly preparing to attack Europe are false. The Russian leader added that Western leaders are deliberately scaring their citizens and stressed that Moscow has no such plans.

After Putin’s aggression against Ukraine, there is a justified concern within the EU that his next target will be its members, so they are strengthening their defenses, restoring conscription, or mining their borders, and this appeal by Mema is part of Russia’s propaganda campaign to soften that resistance among Europeans (see: here and here).

This is also happening in the context of negotiations on the war in Ukraine, which were initiated by US President Donald Trump. While Trump has been more lenient towards Russia, the Europeans have taken a more intransigent stance.

However, that appeal of Mema is meaningless if one takes into account the deadly threats that Russian politicians are making to Europeans. Mema is keeping quiet about it, but it’s already too late for that.

The speaker of the Russian Duma (Parliament), Vyacheslav Volodin, threatened that a Russian Sarmat missile could reach Strasbourg, where the European Parliament sits, in 3 minutes and 20 seconds, and Russian MP and general Andrei Gurulev said he would target the Netherlands. Such threats were also made by Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov, although he traveled extensively in Italy, where he even owns a villa on Lake Como, which is now “frozen” by sanctions.

Here we understand that many Russians have happily traveled around Europe–as Mema points out, but many of them are hypocrites like Solovyov. On one hand, they despise Europe, calling it “Gayropa,” and, on the other, they want to enjoy its qualities, and even Putin’s daughters have traveled a lot or even lived in the Netherlands and Germany. Hypocrites like Solovyov cannot be a bridge of rapprochement between Europe and Russia–as Mema suggests.

Given the non-recognition of Kosovo and Russia’s closeness to Serbia, some may wonder why an Albanian like Mema would support Putin? It’s strange, but not impossible.

We have stated that the Kremlin presents different narratives to different audiences, so everyone hears what they want to hear and is drawn to it, and Albanians are not immune to this either.

Among them are some Islamists, who are attracted by Moscow’s cooperation with the Taliban, Hamas, Iran, the Houthis, and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Communists, on the other hand, are attracted by Moscow’s former cooperation between the USSR and communist Albania, even though they eventually fell out. Among the Albanians there are also Christians, like Mema, who is Catholic and somewhat conservative, and Moscow attracts them with narratives about church, family values, homophobia and so on.

Mema supports the separation of Kosovo from Serbia, but tries to reconcile this with his sympathies for Russia, so he demands that this also apply to the territories that it illegally tore off from Ukraine, even though we have explained that the cases of Kosovo and Ukraine cannot be equated.

The Kremlin is also notorious for bribing European politicians, so it wouldn’t be surprising if Mema’s motive was simply money, but for him specifically, at least for now, we have no such evidence.

In any case, relevant Finnish media outlets are linking him to Kremlin propaganda, a view shared by fact-checkers across Europe. We have also clarified that his appeal does not represent Finland’s stance. For all of this, we assess the post, which we are reviewing here, as untrue.

 

 

All comments and remarks regarding this and other Vistinomer articles, correction and clarification requests as well as suggestions for fact-checking politicians’ statements and political parties’ promises can be submitted by using this form