HELSINKI — A year ago, the day Russia invaded Ukraine and set in motion a devastating European ground war, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto declared: “Now the masks are off. Only the cold face of war is visible.”
Niinisto, in office for more than a decade, had met with Russian President Vladimir Putin many times, in line with a Finnish policy of pragmatic outreach to Russia, a country with which it shares a nearly 835-mile border. Suddenly, however, that policy lay in tatters, and, along with it, Europe’s illusions about business as usual with Putin.
