The Finns Party, formerly known as the True Finns, is a right-wing populist political party in Finland. It was founded in 1995 following the dissolution of the Finnish Rural Party.
From 1941 to 1943, 1,408 Finns volunteered for service on the Eastern Front of World War II in the Waffen-SS, in units of the SS Division Wiking. Most of these volunteers served as motorized infantry in the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS. The unit was disbanded in mid-1943 as the volunteers' two-year commitment had expired and the Finnish government was unwilling to allow more men to volunteer. In 1944-1945 a company sized unit of Finnish defectors recruited to the SS continued fighting alongside Germany.
Jussi Kristian Halla-aho is a Finnish politician, currently serving as the Speaker of the Parliament of Finland since 2023. Halla-aho has served as a member of the Parliament of Finland from 2011 to 2014 and again since 2019, and as the leader of the Finns Party from 10 June 2017 to 14 August 2021. Previously, between 2014 and 2019, he was a member of the European Parliament, where he was part of the Identity and Democracy group.
The Finnish Anti-Fascist Committee, also known by its Finnish abbreviation SAFKA, is a radical political organisation operating in Finland, founded in November 2008, but never registered. According to the Chairperson Johan Bäckman the committee has twenty activists and about a hundred supporters.
Erkki Johan Bäckman is a Finnish and Russian political activist, propagandist, author, eurosceptic, and convicted stalker working for the Russian government. Bäckman has been a prominent Finnish propagandist in Russia who has actively participated in long-standing operations to propagate anti-Finnish and anti-Western Russian propaganda.
Anton Salonen is a child with Russian-Finnish dual citizenship involved in an international child custody dispute between his parents. The Finnish-born child was first abducted by his Estonian Russian mother in 2008 and taken to Russia. In turn the boy was abducted by his father in 2009 and smuggled back to Finland with the help of Finnish diplomats stationed at the Finnish consulate in Saint Petersburg. The incident has sparked a diplomatic row between Finland and Russia. The Finnish diplomat who helped to abduct the child was dismissed from the Finnish Consulate and Russia has declared him persona non grata.
Robert Rantala is a Russian-Finnish dual citizen who at seven years old was taken by the Finnish social service to a children's shelter in early 2010. Russian media followed closely the incident for weeks. He escaped from school to his parents and Russia's Commissioner for Children Pavel Astakhov visited in Finland.
Presidential elections were held in Finland on 28 January 2018. The incumbent Sauli Niinistö received 63% of the vote and was re-elected for a second term, avoiding a second round. He received a plurality of the vote in every municipality and a majority in all but 13 municipalities.
The 2017 Finnish government crisis followed the Finns Party leadership election held on 10 June 2017. Prime Minister Juha Sipilä and Minister of Finance Petteri Orpo announced on 12 June that they would no longer cooperate in a coalition government with the Finns Party after Jussi Halla-aho was elected party chairman. The crisis resolved on 13 June when twenty MPs defected from the Finns Party's parliamentary group, forming what would eventually become the Finnish Reform Movement party. Sipilä's government retained a majority in Finland's parliament as the Finnish Reform Movement continued as a member of the coalition.
MV-media, also known as MV??!!, formerly Mitä Vittua? and MV-lehti, is a Finnish fake news website founded by Ilja Janitskin. The website publishes disinformation and conspiracy theories with a racist, anti-immigrant, anti-Islam, anti-vaccine, pro-Russian and Eurosceptic agenda. The site has links to the far-right Soldiers of Odin. As of 2022, the publication is based in Russian-occupied Eastern Ukraine and regularly shares Russian state propaganda.
Ano Veli Samuel Turtiainen is a Finnish former powerlifter and far-right politician who served in the Parliament of Finland for the South-Eastern Finland constituency from 2019 to 2023. He is also founder and former leader of the Power Belongs to the People party. He lives in Juva. Turtiainen was elected to the parliament in the 2019 parliamentary election. Turtiainen was expelled from the Finns Party for posting a tweet perceived as mocking the murder of George Floyd in February 2021.
The Russian Imperial Movement is a Russian ultranationalist and white supremacist militant organization which operates out of Russia. The group seeks to create a new Russian Empire. Its paramilitary wing is the Russian Imperial Legion. During the Donbas War, it recruited and trained thousands of far-right volunteers who joined the Russian separatist forces in Ukraine. It has also given training to other far-right groups in Europe and North America.
Jukka Mallinen is a Finnish author, poet, translator and interpreter.
In Finland, the far right was strongest in 1920–1940 when the Academic Karelia Society, Lapua Movement, Patriotic People's Movement (IKL) and Vientirauha operated in the country and had hundreds of thousands of members. In addition to these dominant far-right and fascist organizations, smaller Nazi parties operated as well.
Presidential elections were held in Finland on 28 January 2024, with a second round held on 11 February. Voters elected a president of the Republic for a six-year term. Incumbent president Sauli Niinistö was term-limited and ineligible to run for re-election, having served the maximum two terms, ensuring that the president elected would be the country's thirteenth.
Power Belongs to the People, formerly known as Parliamentary Group Ano Turtiainen (AT), is a political party in Finland. Ano Turtiainen was its group leader and was its only member of parliament. The group's rules state that the purpose of the group's activities is "to act in parliament in the interests of Finland and Finns and to have freedom of speech in elections".
Kärkkäinen is a department store chain in Ylivieska, Finland. It was established in 1988. In 2016, it was the fourth largest discount store chain in Finland after Tokmanni, HalpaHalli and Motonet. In addition to Ylivieska, the company has also stores in Oulu, Ii, Lahti and Jyväskylä, and it also own an online store. The company's founder and CEO is Juha Kärkkäinen.
Janus Kostia Putkonen is a Finnish theater director, journalist, eurosceptic and propagandist. Putkonen was the editor-in-chief of the Verkkomedia website, which was active from 2011 to 2013. From 2015 to 2018, he was the director of the Russian-backed Donetsk Separatist Information Center Doni-News. Since 2019, he has been the editor-in-chief of MV-media. Putkonen focused Russian funded Doni-news and MV-media to support pro-Russian propaganda about the Donetsk People's Republic.
The Freedom Alliance, is a right-wing populist registered political party in Finland. The party was founded by Ossi Tiihonen as a result of a split from the Power Belongs to the People (VKK) party in February 2022, receiving 5,000 signatures on 19 April 2022, and being later registered on 6 May 2022.
Mika Petteri Aaltola is a Finnish political scientist and a member of the European Parliament. He was the previous director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. He has gained media attention since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which he follows and regularly comments on. Aaltola holds a doctorate in social sciences. He works as docent at Tampere University, and was a part-time professor at Tallinn University. He ran as an independent candidate for President of Finland in the 2024 presidential election.