Russia Spies Back to Cold War Levels in Finland
The number of Russian covert staff in Finland has increased, and is now as high as it was during the Cold War, Helsingin Sanomat daily reported.

According to the information gathered by the Finnish newspaper, about 30 of the 50 foreign spies currently active in Helsinki, have been working on behalf of Russia. The remaining 20 are believed to be intelligence officers from China, the U.S., five different Western countries, and of some former East European countries.

About 80-90 percent of all spies are diplomats, the paper says, while the others work as researchers, journalists, scholarship holders, businessmen, and students. Russia’s interest in Finland is shown by the fact that the Russian Embassy employs almost as many diplomats as the embassies of the United States, China and Germany put together.

In recent years Finland has quietly changed its policy toward diplomats known to be spies and toward other professionals of illegal intelligence. Once the first term in the embassy is over, they are not admitted into the country again, a policy that has allowed the country to get rid of 15 spooks. But the Russians, nevertheless, manage to continue working in the country as their covert staff settle for mid-level civil servant posts.