"How did Russian aggression change the attitude of the Finnish army? In nothing. The attack on Ukraine only confirmed that we've done everything well so far - Jyri Raitasalo, brigadier general of the Finnish army, answered my question with a broad grin on his flushed, chubby face. His voice was drowned out by the screeching, banging noise, and I immediately realized that his satisfaction was not for his snappy response, but for the two Leopard tanks that zipped past us.
The tall man in his fifties looked at the war machines with such love that it made me feel like I was in the beach scene of Apocalypse Now. With the difference that we were not in Vietnam, but in a Finnish forest, not helicopters, but tanks were moving around us, and the brigadier general was not present in the role of the aggressor, but the defender.