Russia-Ukraine conflict destabilizes Finland's foreign policy position

HELSINKI, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- Foreign and security policy changes, especially the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, have destabilized Finland's foreign and security policy position, according to an update to the government's national risk assessment issued on Tuesday.

The assessment published by Finland's Ministry of the Interior covers 21 nationally significant threat scenarios and disruptions, ranging from hybrid influence activities and armed conflicts to natural disasters, industrial accidents and climate phenomena.

The previous risk assessment was published in 2018.

The assessment anticipates sudden incidents targeted at Finland that have an impact on the vital functions of society and require the authorities to adopt exceptional measures or even request help from other countries.

According to the report, climate change, the digitalization of societies, hybrid influence activities and networked value and production chains are further examples of development trends and phenomena in the operating environment of threats and disruptions.

There are two new threats compared with the previous report: multiple simultaneous large wildfires and an extremely powerful space storm, national broadcaster Yle said.

There is also a high probability of a new pandemic, the report noted. However, it is impossible to estimate the magnitude of the risk and the severity of the pandemic in advance, it said.