According to The Telegraph, the incidents occurred last year. Jussi Halla-aho, speaker of the Finnish parliament, said that evidence was left in the premises indicating someone’s presence.
Halla-aho called the number of suspicious cases significant and clarified that nothing was stolen or damaged. In one episode, a lawmaker found feces left in the toilet.
Ben Zyskowicz, a lawmaker from Finland’s ruling National Coalition Party, believes Russian intelligence services are behind this. According to him, they are trying to intimidate Finnish lawmakers, show them that they are being watched, and cause confusion or concern.
After Vladimir Putin launched the war in Ukraine, Finland abandoned its long-standing policy of neutrality, joined NATO, and actively supports Kyiv. Finnish President Alexander Stubb advocates strengthening the alliance and taking a tough stance against Russia, and The Telegraph called the intrusion case the first such episode in the country.
The Telegraph also recalled that The Guardian journalist Luke Harding wrote about the KGB using similar tactics since the 1960s. According to him, the FSB used them against him in Moscow as well, and former BBC correspondent Sarah Rainsford wrote in her memoirs Goodbye, Russia about an intrusion into her apartment.
The publication also cited examples in other NATO countries. In Estonia in September, during the presidential election, a fabricated post about outgoing President Alar Karis and Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda being linked to Jeffrey Epstein appeared on the fake website euobserver.news. In Latvia on October 3, a fake video disguised as a Euronews report claimed that a Ukrainian soldier had killed three NATO servicemen during the Baltic Trust 26 exercise and then taken his own life; Latvia’s National Armed Forces denied this, Euronews said it had not released such a report, and the video received more than 1.85 million views.
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